David Stephens* ‘War Memorial visitor figures not keeping pace with population increase’, Honest History, 10 August 2020 In 2016 and again in 2017, Honest History took a long view of Australian War Memorial visitor statistics going back to 1990-91. Here,…
Stephens, David: War Memorial visitor figures not keeping pace with population increase
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Browne, Peter & Seumas Spark, ed.: ‘I Wonder’: The Life and Work of Ken Inglis
Peter Browne & Seumas Spark, ed. ‘I Wonder’: The Life and Work of Ken Inglis, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2020 Ken Inglis was one of Australia’s most creative, wide-ranging and admired historians. During a scholarly career spanning nearly seven decades,…
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Piggott, Michael: Wondering about the long and well-lived life of historian, Ken Inglis
Michael Piggott* ‘Wondering about the long and well-lived life of historian, Ken Inglis’, Honest History, 14 April 2020 Michael Piggott reviews ‘I Wonder’: The Life and Work of Ken Inglis, edited by Peter Browne and Seumas Spark In ‘Looking at…
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From the Honest History vault: Another (timely) look at Professor Frankfurt on bullshit
Some time ago, Honest History came across the work of Professor Harry Frankfurt on bullshit. It was not a joke, but a serious academic work. Professor Frankfurt’s little book had been around for a while, since 1986 in fact, but…
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Smith, Zoe: ‘The Great Australian Silence’: Sexual violence in Australian history
Zoe Smith ‘“The Great Australian Silence”: Sexual violence in Australian history‘, History Matters (University of Sheffield), 5 February 2020 From the first establishment of European settlements in Australia, forced sexual relations perpetrated by white settlers have remained relatively unspoken about…
Torosyan, Lilly: Book review: Dark Pasts: Changing the State’s Story in Turkey and Japan
Lilly Torosyan ‘Book review: Dark Pasts: Changing the State’s Story in Turkey and Japan‘, Armenian Weekly, 15 January 2020 The book is by Jennifer M. Dixon, who seeks to solve the mystery of why and how some states come to…
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Watson, Joey & Ian Coombe: Four Australian military legends that are more myth than fact
Joey Watson & Ian Coombe ‘Four Australian military legends that are more myth than fact‘, ABC News, 14 December 2019 Features the current ABC RN series, ‘Myths of war‘, presented by Mark Dapin, author of, most recently, Australia’s Vietnam: Myths…
Hyde, Lewis: A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past
Lewis Hyde A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past, Canongate, Edinburgh, 2019; originally published Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2019; electronic version available We live in a culture that prizes memory—how much we can store, the quality of…
Stephens, David: Lest We Forget? This primer for forgetting has some stuff worth remembering
David Stephens* ‘Lest We Forget? This primer for forgetting has some stuff worth remembering’, Honest History, 11 December 2019 David Stephens reviews A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past, by Lewis Hyde A book about forgetting (and remembering) should…
Stephens, David: History is never settled and is always vulnerable to political manipulation: recent Russian and Polish examples
David Stephens* ‘History is never settled and is always vulnerable to political manipulation: recent Russian and Polish examples’, Honest History, 10 September 2019 Honest History has always had an aversion to complaints that someone is ‘rewriting history’. John Howard occasionally…
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Stephens, David: From the Honest History vault: Awkward humility: the speeches of the Hon. Brendan Nelson AO
David Stephens* ‘From the Honest History vault: Awkward humility: the speeches of the Hon. Brendan Nelson AO‘, Honest History, 15 August 2019 A long piece in two parts on the oral oeuvre of the soon to be former Director of…
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Gower, Steve: The Australian War Memorial: A Century on from the Vision
Steve Gower The Australian War Memorial: A Century on from the Vision, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2019 In this book, Steve Gower, the highly successful director of the Australian War Memorial from 1996 to 2012, gives a comprehensive account of the…
Abbott, Derek: A personal memoir from a safe pair of hands: Steve Gower on the Australian War Memorial
Derek Abbott* ‘A personal memoir from a safe pair of hands: Steve Gower on the Australian War Memorial’, Honest History, 2 July 2019 Derek Abbott reviews The Australian War Memorial: A Century on from the Vision, by Steve Gower Steve…
Holmes, Jack: Does it matter that the President knows nothing about history? We asked 3 historians
Jack Holmes ‘Does it matter that the President knows nothing about history? We asked 3 historians‘, Esquire, 13 April 2019 From the politics editor of Esquire magazine, interviews three youngish American historians, riffing off the Trumpian ignorance of history (and…
Daley, Paul: Decolonising the dictionary: reclaiming Australian history for the forgotten
Paul Daley ‘Decolonising the dictionary: reclaiming Australian history for the forgotten‘, Guardian Australia, 17 February 2019 updated Long article pointing to the deficiencies in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB, located at the Australian National University), especially its earlier volumes…
Ashenden, Dean: Saving the War Memorial from itself
Dean Ashenden ‘Saving the War Memorial from itself‘, Inside Story, 15 January 2019 updated Long article canvassing many aspects of the War Memorial’s current direction, from its refusal to recognise the Frontier Wars, to the composition of its Council, and…
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Hawkins, Jo: Consuming Anzac: The History of Australia’s Most Powerful Brand
Jo Hawkins Consuming Anzac: The History of Australia’s Most Powerful Brand, UWA Publishing, Perth, 2018 Australians have been consuming Anzac for a century. While commemoration and commerce have never been entirely separate they have become increasingly intertwined. How does the…
Piggott, Michael: Anzac still a powerful brand after all these years
Michael Piggott* ‘Anzac still a powerful brand after all these years’, Honest History, 6 January 2019 updated Michael Piggott reviews Consuming Anzac: The History of Australia’s Most Powerful Brand by Jo Hawkins How doctoral students, still recovering from the physical…
Stretton, Hugh: ‘I am here to barrack for more historical education’: how to use history
Hugh Stretton ‘”I am here to barrack for more historical education”: how to use history’, Honest History, 19 December 2018 updated Hugh Stretton (1924-2015) was one of Australia’s most distinguished social scientists. Hugh Stretton: Selected Writings, edited by Graeme Davison,…
Stephens, David: Paul Daley’s On Patriotism: an appreciation from a fellow-traveller
David Stephens* ‘Paul Daley’s On Patriotism: an appreciation from a fellow-traveller’, Honest History, 16 December 2018 updated This is not really a book review, though a book has set it off. The book is Paul Daley’s On Patriotism, actually an…
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Stephens, David: Questions downstairs: the After the War exhibition at the Australian War Memorial
David Stephens* ‘Questions downstairs: the After the War exhibition at the Australian War Memorial’, Honest History, 13 December 2018 updated In 2014, when the refurbished First World War galleries at the Australian War Memorial were about to be opened, the…
Miller, Nick: If you could put a price on WWI fallen, it wouldn’t be $100 million
Nick Miller ‘If you could put a price on WWI fallen, it wouldn’t be $100 million‘, The Age, 5 December 2018 updated An FOI claim on the Department of Veterans’ Affairs reveals that visitor numbers to the Monash centre at…
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Moses, John A.: The management of history in totalitarian countries: a cautionary tale
John A. Moses* ‘The management of history in totalitarian countries: a cautionary tale’, Honest History, 4 December 2018 We welcome Professor Moses’ contribution to a well-traversed field. For related material, see: Margaret MacMillan on history teaching in China, Canada, Russia,…
Haigh, Bruce: The ANZACS: ransacked by the Right
Bruce Haigh ‘The ANZACS: ransacked by the Right‘, Independent Australia, 24 November 2018 Retired diplomat writes that the Anzac myth has been constructed to serve conservative interests. Australia’s default position is to the right of centre. We are just emerging…
Stanley, Peter: Commemoration without conscience: the War Memorial must remain sacred
Peter Stanley ‘Commemoration without conscience: the War Memorial must remain sacred‘, Canberra Times, 22 November 2018 Article by military historian (and Past-President of Honest History) arguing that, if the Memorial is indeed a sacred place, that status is incompatible with…
Davies, Geoff: Lest we also forget
Geoff Davies ‘Lest we also forget‘, Pearls and Irritations, 20 November 2018 Pungent and telling piece by an author and retired scientist. He enjoins us regarding a number of important events and issues, introducing each one with the words ‘lest…
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Reynolds, Henry: Has the cavalcade of commemoration finally halted?
Henry Reynolds ‘Has the cavalcade of commemoration finally halted?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 16 November 2018 Leading historian says historians of the future will wonder where our obsession with war – made flesh in the Anzac centenary – came from and…
Cochrane, Peter: Reply to Marilyn Lake’s review of Best We Forget: The War for White Australia, 1914-18
Peter Cochrane* ‘Reply to Marilyn Lake’s review of Best We Forget: The War for White Australia, 1914-18’, Honest History, 16 November 2018 updated Marilyn Lake’s review of Best We Forget: The War for White Australia, 1914-18 appeared in Australian Book…
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Innes, Melanie & Heather Sharp: World War I commemoration and student historical consciousness: a study of high-school students’ views
Melanie Innes & Heather Sharp ‘World War I commemoration and student historical consciousness: a study of high-school students’ views‘, History Education Research Journal, vol. 15, no. 2, 26 October 2018, pp. 193-205 (open access) Establishes that ‘Gallipoli and, more broadly,…
Morrissey, Doug: Ned Kelly: Selectors, Squatters and Stock Thieves
Doug Morrissey Ned Kelly: Selectors, Squatters and Stock Thieves, Connor Court Publishing, Brisbane, 2018 Doug Morrissey’s acclaimed book Ned Kelly: A Lawless Life (2015) was short listed for the prestigious Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Australian History in 2016. This, his second…
Piggott, Michael: Flourishing myths and the weight of evidence: Ned Kelly again
Michael Piggott* ‘Flourishing myths and the weight of evidence: Ned Kelly again’, Honest History, 12 October 2018 Doug Morrissey’s Ned Kelly: Selectors, Squatters and Stock Thieves is reviewed by Michael Piggott Doug Morrissey’s new book has several preliminaries. As well…
Raffin, Greg: Mutiny on the Western Front: 1918
Greg Raffin Mutiny on the Western Front: 1918, Big Sky Publishing, Newport NSW, 2018 On 21 September 1918, with retreating German forces on their last legs, the 1st Battalion of the AIF was ordered to return to the front just as they…
Stephens, David: Can mutiny sometimes be the most rational act for a soldier?
David Stephens ‘Can mutiny sometimes be the most rational act for a soldier?’ Honest History, 4 October 2018 David Stephens reviews Mutiny on the Western Front: 1918 by Greg Raffin Anything worth doing usually takes a while. Retired history teacher…
Dyster, Barrie: Grieving for Gallipoli: a reflection for the centenary of the 1918 Armistice
Barrie Dyster* ‘Grieving for Gallipoli: a reflection for the centenary of the 1918 Armistice’, Honest History, 23 September 2018 The centenary of the end of the Great War is an opportunity to reflect on the world-wide impact of the conflict.…
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Daley, Paul: Colonial Australia’s foundation is stained with the profits of British slavery
Paul Daley ‘Colonial Australia’s foundation is stained with the profits of British slavery‘, Guardian Australia, 21 September 2018 Riffs off recently published book, Island Off the Coast of Asia: Instruments of Statecraft in Australian Foreign Policy, by Clinton Fernandes. Fernandes…
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Fathi, Romain: World politics explainer: the Great War (WWI)
Romain Fathi ‘World politics explainer: the Great War (WWI)‘, The Conversation, 3 September 2018 updated The article describes: the global conflict that was the Great War: the death toll of over ten million soldiers and six million civilians; the subsequent…
Margaret Macmillan Reith Lectures 2018 ‘The Mark of Cain’: on war and humanity
Update 12 October 2020: Macmillan turned the lectures into a book, reviewed here. *** The 2018 Reith lectures by distinguished Canadian historian, Professor Margaret Macmillan, can be found on the BBC site, in audio and transcript. The series has the…
Daley, Paul: How do we settle the “statue wars”? Let’s start by telling the truth about our past
Paul Daley ‘How do we settle the “statue wars”? Let’s start by telling the truth about our past‘, Guardian Australia, 29 June 2018 The author says colonial-era statues, properly considered, can lead us towards an honest history. The article riffs…
ANU not to hook up with Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation
Update 21 August 2018: Alexander Wells in Overland, including on the irrelevance of ‘Western civilisation’ to today’s issues. Update 5 July 2018: Frank Bongiorno talks to Phillip Adams on Late Night Live. Update 26 June 2018: Geoffrey Blainey and Simon…
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McGibbon, Ian: William Malone and the entrenched myth of insubordination at Gallipoli
Ian McGibbon ‘William Malone and the entrenched myth of insubordination at Gallipoli‘, Stuff, 22 April 2018 A distinguished New Zealand military historian unpicks a myth that Kiwi officer, William Malone, disobeyed orders from a British superior at Gallipoli, specifically at…
Morrissey, Doug: The Irishness of Ned Kelly: romance and reality
Doug Morrissey* ‘The Irishness of Ned Kelly: romance and reality’, Honest History, 23 April 2018 Fenian martyr or common criminal? Ned Kelly is a celebrity in both the Australian and Irish republican canons of heroes. In Ireland, he is honoured…
Stanley, Peter, ed.: Victory on Gallipoli and Other What-ifs of Australian History
Peter Stanley, ed. Victory on Gallipoli and Other What-ifs of Australian History, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2018 With a twist of fate – and of historical fact – Gallipoli was a military success, Australia had a female prime minister…
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Abbott, Derek: If only we had more what-ifs: a book of counterfactuals
Derek Abbott* ‘If only we had more what-ifs: a book of counterfactuals’, Honest History, 16 April 2018 Derek Abbott reviews Victory on Gallipoli and Other What-ifs of Australian History, edited by Peter Stanley Jack Lang prepares to cut the ribbon…
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Reynolds, Henry: Brendan Nelson and the War Memorial – what about the frontier wars?
Henry Reynolds ‘Brendan Nelson and the War Memorial – what about the frontier wars?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 10 April 2018 Historian of invader-Indigenous relations in Australia considers the proposed extension to the Australian War Memorial and the Memorial’s inadequate recognition…
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Stephens, David: Lest We Forget again: Anzac Day is an opportunity to confront our violent frontier past and its shadow today
David Stephens ‘Lest We Forget again: Anzac Day is an opportunity to confront our violent frontier past and its shadow today’, Honest History, 10 April 2018 updated Yassmin Abdel-Magied, 2017 (Guardian Australia/ABC) Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a young Somali-Australian Muslim woman, was…
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Stanley, Peter: Not Gallipoli: a visit to Dybbøl, a Danish site of memory
Peter Stanley* ‘Not Gallipoli: a visit to Dybbøl, a Danish site of memory’, Honest History, 10 April 2018 What does a visit to Dybbøl tell Australians? It offers a reminder that battlefield commemoration need not be strident, garish or sentimental,…
Highlights reel: historian Mark McKenna writes in 1997 on ‘black armband history’
‘Highlights reel: historian Mark McKenna writes in 1997 on “black armband history” ‘, Honest History, 10 April 2018 Mark McKenna’s Quarterly Essay 69: Moment of Truth: History and Australia’s Future (2018) considers related issues. HH *** Historiography, like history itself,…
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Moses, John: The contingency factor in national historiography: Germany and Australia
John Moses* ‘The contingency factor in national historiography: Germany and Australia’, Honest History, 25 February 2018 ABSTRACT This paper observes that what historians choose to write about is determined by the circumstances of their time and place. The paper does…
Daley, Paul: Beating the khaki drum: how Australian identity was militarised
Paul Daley ‘Beating the khaki drum: how Australian identity was militarised‘, Guardian Australia, 1 February 2018 Pulls together the themes of Anzackery, arms manufacturers inflicting advertising on Canberra airport users, and the same manufacturers donating to the Australian War Memorial…
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Armstrong, John: Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. April 2015 – April 2019
John Armstrong* ‘Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. April 2015–April 2019‘, New Zealand Journal of Public History 27, 2017, pp. 59-63 This (pdf) is a long review of the Museum of New Zealand…
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Kevin, Tony: President Putin opens the Wall of Sorrow Memorial in Moscow
Tony Kevin* ‘President Putin opens the Wall of Sorrow Memorial in Moscow’, Honest History, 8 December 2017 As part of Honest History’s continuing interest in the uses and abuses of history, we have previously noted President Vladimir Putin’s interest in…
Stephens, David: The second First Lady, the pretend colonel, and the dogs of Ottawa: some alternative decision-making scenarios for heads of state
David Stephens* ‘The second First Lady, the pretend colonel, and the dogs of Ottawa: some alternative decision-making scenarios for heads of state’, Honest History, 30 November 2017 One thing often leads to another in the blogging business. A little while…
Winkler, Heinrich August (trans. John A. Moses): And deliver us from the war guilt
[Note: This is a translation completed by Professor John A. Moses in November 2017 of a July 2014 review article in German by Professor Heinrich August Winkler on Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (Die…
Bongiorno, Frank: Historical constructions of knowledge: Pymble Ladies College address
Frank Bongiorno ‘Historical constructions of knowledge: Pymble Ladies College address, 12 September 2017‘ This address was delivered to History Extension students from Pymble and other schools. (Honest History representatives do these engagements frequently: contact admin@honesthistory.net.au to discuss possibilities.) All documents,…
McCormack, Matthew: Historians and Twitter
Matthew McCormack ‘Historians and Twitter‘, Twitter/History at Northampton blog, 20 November 2017 This is a first for Honest History – turning a Tweet into a post – but it is done gladly because Matthew McCormack up there at the University…
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Coleborne, Catharine: The concept of ‘western civilisation’ is past its use-by date in university humanities departments
Catharine Coleborne ‘The concept of “western civilisation” is past its use-by date in university humanities departments‘, The Conversation, 21 November 2017 Critiques moves driven by the new Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation to revamp BA courses around the idea of ‘Western…
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Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (30): Officially sponsored 2017 view of the conscription battles of 1916-17
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (30): Officially sponsored 2017 view of the conscription battles of 1916-17’, Honest History, 20 November 2017 The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series Some Fairfax papers today carry an article by Michael Grealy on the conscription referendums…
Davison, Graeme: Do we belong here? Reflections on family, locality and community
Graeme Davison ‘Do we belong here? Reflections on family, locality and community (Address to the Victorian Community History Awards, 16 October 2017)‘, RHSV News, November 2017, pp. 4-5 This speech was delivered in Melbourne. It asks some important questions: Do…
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Jenkins, Simon: No more remembrance days – let’s consign the 20th century to history
Simon Jenkins ‘No more remembrance days – let’s consign the 20th century to history‘, The Guardian, 9 November 2017 Other Honest History material on Remembrance Day 99 is here and linked therefrom. Simon Jenkins’ piece was shared 12 000 times…
Paradoxical purchase: War Memorial acquires APY ‘defence of Country’ painting Kulatangku angakanyini manta munu Tjukurpa
The Australian War Memorial has unveiled a large painting by artists from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands in South Australia. The painting, Kulatangku angakanyini manta munu Tjukurpa (‘Country and Culture will be protected by spears’) hangs in a conspicuous…
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Letter to the Editor: Euphemisms are deadly
This in Fairfax today from Honest History secretary and editor: Every Anzac and Remembrance Day, we hear euphemisms for men and women who have died in war. They are “the fallen”, they “made the supreme sacrifice”, “they shall grow not…
Beyond the poppies row on row: Remembrance Day is a good day to think
Remembrance Day (Armistice Day, if you prefer) – like Anzac Day, Christmas, Easter, Passover, Ramadan, Diwali, Melbourne Cup Day, and other regular ceremonial and commemorative occasions – triggers virtually automatic reactions among many of us. Poppies, stories of old Diggers,…
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Down the Remembrance Trail to Villers-Bretonneux with the (fairly self-effacing – so far) DVA publicity machine
Readers of the Launceston Examiner, North-west Tasmania Advocate and Canberra Times earlier this week will have seen some articles under the byline of Michael Grealy. The articles in the Canberra Times were headed ‘New tribute to Diggers in Europe’, ‘“Mad…
Kahn, Matthew: How far must Trump ‘unravel’ before the 25th Amendment kicks in?
Matthew Kahn ‘How far must Trump “unravel” before the 25th Amendment kicks in?‘ Foreign Policy, 23 October 2017 A detailed and sober assessment of the possibilities of using the 25th Amendment (presidential disability) to the United States Constitution to remove…
Stephens, David: Here we go again: complaints about history curricula, this time tertiary
David Stephens ‘Here we go again: complaints about history curricula, this time tertiary’, Honest History, 25 October 2017 updated There’s been another sprouting of what commentators with a horticultural background once used to call ‘a hardy perennial’ – complaints about…
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‘Anzackery’ definition included in the new edition of the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary
‘Anzackery’ is one of the new words included in the sixth and latest edition of the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary, edited by Mark Gwynn and Amanda Laugesen, and to be published on 26 October. As in the Australian National Dictionary…
Morrissey, Doug: The heritage marketing of Ned Kelly
Doug Morrissey* ‘The heritage marketing of Ned Kelly‘, Honest History, 15 October 2017 updated Ned Kelly, hero or villain, put-upon Irish victim or psychopathic killer? These questions have been around for almost the whole time since Kelly was executed almost…
The heritage marketing of Ned Kelly
Doug Morrissey* ‘The heritage marketing of Ned Kelly’, Honest History, 15 October 2017 Mention Ned Kelly and everybody has an opinion. To many people, Ned is a hero, a champion of the poor man, the quintessential Aussie battler. To others,…
Stephens, David: Who’s Schlesinger now? Something that may have happened in the Nixon era could be relevant today
David Stephens ‘Who’s Schlesinger now? Something that may have happened in the Nixon era could be relevant today‘, Pearls and Irritations, 5 October 2017 updated Update 19 November 2017: More on this issue in a post from the BBC (with…
More thoughts on the memorials/statues debate: Don Watson and Tracey Spicer
We have collected lots of links from home and abroad on the recently aired (but perennial) issue of statues, monuments, memorials, remembering and forgetting. You can find them here, under the heading ‘The past, choosing our history, and memorials: an…
Haultain-Gall, Matthew: Forgetting and remembering the Anzacs in Flanders Fields
Matthew Haultain-Gall ‘Forgetting and remembering the Anzacs in Flanders Fields‘, Overland, 26 September 2017 Discusses why the battles of Ypres (including Passchendaele) have not had a higher profile in Australian collective memory. The third battle of Ypres did not fit…
Haultain-Gall, Matthew: Same old relics, same old story? Displaying the third battle of Ypres at the Australian War Memorial, past and present
Matthew Haultain-Gall ‘Same old relics, same old story? Displaying the third battle of Ypres at the Australian War Memorial, past and present‘, History Australia, vol. 14, no. 3, August 2017, pp. 1-17 (link to online version supplied by author) When…
Clark, Anna: Trench warfare: The Honest History Book
Anna Clark ‘Trench warfare: The Honest History Book‘, Sydney Review of Books, 19 September 2017 Review of The Honest History Book (long read). [The authors, says Clark] provide a powerful argument against the superficial, the commercial, and the celebratory aspects…
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Torsh, Daniela & Max Humphreys: On Sydney Harbour with the prime minister of South Vietnam, 1967
Daniela Torsh & Max Humphreys ‘On Sydney Harbour with the prime minister of South Vietnam, 1967‘, Honest History, 19 September 2017 This extended interview transcript is provided as a primary source for readers interested in the history of protest in…
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On Sydney Harbour with the prime minister of South Vietnam, 1967: Daniela Torsh interviews Max Humphreys
‘On Sydney Harbour with the prime minister of South Vietnam, 1967: Daniela Torsh interviews Max Humphreys’[1], Honest History, 19 September 2017 Kirribilli House from the Harbour (Wikipedia/Stephen Bain) Daniela Torsh: So Max, I’ve got a question to start with: tell…
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Daley, Paul: Statues are not history. Here are six in Australia that need rethinking
Paul Daley ‘Statues are not history. Here are six in Australia that need rethinking‘, Guardian Australia, 25 August 2017 Daley targets statues of Lachlan Macquarie, John Batman, Thomas Mitchell, Angus McMillan, Alfred Canning and James Cook. We do not learn…
The past, choosing our history, and memorials: an issue in Charlottesville and many other places
‘Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You … can’t change history, but you can learn from it.’: President Trump, Twitter, 17 August 2017…
Lockhart, Greg: What were we fighting for at Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front?
Greg Lockhart ‘What were we fighting for at Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front?’ (Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5), Pearls and Irritations, 24-28 July 2017 updated Update 15 August 2017: Lockhart’s further thoughts,…
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Dark irony and dishonesty of Dunkirk: misrepresentations, exaggerations, and clunky bits
‘Dark irony and dishonesty of Dunkirk: misrepresentations, exaggerations, and clunky bits’, Honest History, 1 August 2017 Peter Stanley* reviews Dunkirk Just as Theresa May’s government writhes over the implications of Brexit, there is a dark irony in the appearance of…
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Nolan, Christopher (dir.): Dunkirk
Christopher Nolan Dunkirk, Syncopy, Warner Brothers and others, UK, US, France, Netherlands, 2017 Set during the Second World War, [the film, with an ensemble cast] portrays the Dunkirk evacuation … Nolan wrote the script, told from three perspectives—the land, sea, and air—to contain…
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Puri, Anisa & Alistair Thomson, ed.: Australian Lives: an Intimate History
Anisa Puri & Alistair Thomson, ed. Australian Lives: an Intimate History, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2017; e-book available Australian Lives: An Intimate History illuminates Australian life across the 20th and into the 21st century: how Australian people have been shaped by…
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The Vimy Trap rings Anzackery bells (review of McKay & Swift)
‘The Vimy Trap rings Anzackery bells’, Honest History, 25 July 2017 David Stephens* reviews The Vimy Trap Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War, by Ian McKay and Jamie Swift The Battle of Vimy…
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Aktar, Ayhan: Rewriting the history of Gallipoli: a Turkish perspective
Ayhan Aktar * ‘Rewriting the history of Gallipoli: a Turkish perspective‘, Honest History, 25 July 2017 updated The history of the Gallipoli campaign has been contested in Turkey for many decades. The commemorations of the Ottoman naval victory of 18…
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Rewriting the history of Gallipoli: a Turkish perspective
Ayhan Aktar * ‘Rewriting the history of Gallipoli: a Turkish perspective’, Honest History, 25 July 2017 updated [This piece draws upon my article originally published in the Turkish daily newspaper Taraf (Istanbul), 18 March 2014. An earlier English translation by…
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McKay, Ian & Jamie Swift: The Vimy Trap Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War
Ian McKay & Jamie Swift The Vimy Trap Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War, Between the Lines Books, Toronto, 2016; e-book available The story of the bloody 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge is, according…
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The generations of us: Australian Lives (review of Puri and Thomson, ed.)
‘The generations of us: Australian Lives’ (review of Puri and Thomson, ed.), Honest History, 25 July 2017 Michael Piggott* reviews Australian Lives: an Intimate History, edited by Anisa Puri and Alistair Thomson The imperative to secure research grants is one…
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This week in the Russian Revolution 1917: courtesy of the World Socialist Web Site – and Alexander Kerensky
We have previously respectfully drawn readers’ attention to the resources of the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), which tracks world politics from the perspective of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). The Fourth International was founded by Leon…
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Highlights reel: Hilary Mantel, historical novelist, on what history is all about
Dame Hilary Mantel (author of Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and other books) is this year’s Reith Lecturer for the BBC. You can find transcripts and audio of the lectures (weekly, 13 June 2017 for five weeks) on the…
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Stephens, David: Graham Freudenberg, elegant and erudite scribe of an important era in Australian politics – and earlier
David Stephens ‘Graham Freudenberg, elegant and erudite scribe of an important era in Australian politics – and earlier’, Honest History, 22 June 2017 Norman Graham Freudenberg AM is 83 years old this year. He has written speeches for Labor leaders,…
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Stephens, David: Now that the Ataturk Memorial at Gallipoli is being restored … some options for President Erdogan to consider
David Stephens ‘Now that the Atatürk Memorial at Gallipoli is being restored … some options for President Erdoğan to consider’, Honest History, 18 June 2017 updated Update 13 July 2017: interesting questions posed (in Turkish) by veteran Gallipoli tour guide,…
Stephens, David: Anzac is not just the One Day of the Year: the myth that just keeps on giving
David Stephens ‘Anzac is not just the One Day of the Year: the myth that just keeps on giving’, Honest History, 16 June 2017 While we have been promoting The Honest History Book – which is doing very well, thank…
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Turkish Gallipoli memorials refurbishment takes out Ataturk’s apocryphal ‘Those heroes’ words – for now at least
Update 18 June 2017: our considered view on all of this, including three options for what to do next – addressed to President Erdogan. Update 18 June 2017: Yahoo 7; Courier Mail; Stuff Co NZ; Daily Mail; News Limited; West…
Blight, David: The Battle for Memorial Day in New Orleans
David Blight ‘The Battle for Memorial Day in New Orleans‘, The Atlantic, 29 May 2017 Examines the recent Memorial Day oration of Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans, at a time when the former Confederate states of America are again…
Gallagher, Emily: The first war for country, for nation
Emily Gallagher ‘The first war for country, for nation‘, Inside Story, 18 May 2017 A review of the For country, For Nation exhibition at the Australian War Memorial. Another review, by David Stephens for Honest History, is here and should…
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Bongiorno, Frank: Is Australian history still possible? Australia and the global Eighties: Inaugural Professorial Lecture, Australian National University, 10 May 2017
Frank Bongiorno ‘Is Australian history still possible? Australia and the global Eighties: Inaugural Professorial Lecture, Australian National University, 10 May 2017‘, Honest History, 15 May 2017 This lecture canvasses some of the themes and subject matter in the author’s prize-winning…
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Is Australian history still possible? Australia and the global Eighties: Inaugural Professorial Lecture, Australian National University, 10 May 2017
Frank Bongiorno* ‘Is Australian history still possible? Australia and the global Eighties: Inaugural Professorial Lecture, Australian National University, 10 May 2017’, Honest History, 15 May 2017 It is a mark of the limiting character of a purely national perspective that…
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Hassan, Toni: Why does the War Memorial proudly display this booty from an illegal war?
Toni Hassan ‘Why does the War Memorial proudly display this booty from an illegal war?‘, Canberra Times, 3 May 2017 Also in other Fairfax and in Canberra Times hard copy. Reports the disappointment of former Australian War Memorial education officer,…
Lest we forget Lest We Forget: Rudyard Kipling’s Recessional: Honest History document
‘Lest we forget Lest We Forget: Rudyard Kipling’s “Recessional”: Honest History document’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 updated Update 4 June 2017: an Army musician sang ‘Recessional’ at the opening of the Boer War memorial in Canberra last week. Last…
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Markwick, Roger D.: The “sacralisation” of history and state legitimation
Roger D. Markwick ‘The “sacralisation” of history and state legitimation’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 The furore over the recent remarks of Yassmin Abdel-Magied raises important issues about the possibility of dissent against received – and state-promoted – views of…
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The “sacralisation” of history and state legitimation
Roger D. Markwick* ‘The “sacralisation” of history and state legitimation’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 This is a slightly edited version of a paper presented to a conference, History and Authority: Political Vocabularies of the Modern Age, Humanities Research Centre,…
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Angry Anzac Day 2017: three pieces from Guardian Australia: get those responses rolling in
Update 1 October 2017: Autobiographical piece from Yassmin Abdel-Magied covers the Anzac fuss. Update 18 August 2017: Yassmin Abdel-Magied talks about being Australia’s most publicly hated Muslim. Update 7 August 2017: Yassmin Abdel-Magied wonders where the free speech defenders were…
On every Anzac Day: a rapid round-up of reports before rumbling on to the next ridge
Related material: earlier; later. *** Two years ago, media academic Sharon Mascall-Dare wrote about how journalists every year slip into a standard Anzac Day reporting mode. Look for an old Digger, some attractive young kiddies waving flags, and someone crying,…
The full set: seven pieces of non-mainstream, non-marked up, non-profit commentary for Anzac Day
Related material: later; later still. *** Updated with a few more on Anzac Day itself This Anzac season, as in a number of previous years, Australian children – and possibly some adults, too – can pick up some Anzac mementoes…
Stephens, David: ‘”Johnnies and Mehmets”: Kemal Ataturk’s “quote” is an Anzac confidence trick
David Stephens ‘“Johnnies and Mehmets”: Kemal Ataturk’s “quote” is an Anzac confidence trick‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April 2017 updated Edited version of David Stephens and Burcin Cakir’s chapter 7 of The Honest History Book. The words attributed to Ataturk,…
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Holbrook, Carolyn: Q & A with Peter Stanley
Carolyn Holbrook ‘Q & A with Peter Stanley and other historians, including early career historians‘, Australian Historical Association Early Career Researchers, 1 April 2017 updated Research professor at UNSW Canberra (and Past President of Honest History), Peter Stanley, discusses aspects…
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Menadue, John: Our White Man’s Media again on display in London terrorist attack
John Menadue ‘Our White Man’s Media again on display in London terrorist attack‘, Pearls and Irritations, 27 March 2017 I have often commented that a person from Mars reading or listening to our media would conclude that Australia is an…
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Long white clouds of Atatürk myth over Aotearoa New Zealand
Long white clouds of Atatürk myth over Aotearoa New Zealand The other day at the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington, New Zealand Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Maggie Barry, and Turkish Ambassador, Ahmet Ergin, unveiled a sculpture…
Stephens, David: Allusions in Beanland: two exhibitions at the Australian War Memorial
David Stephens ‘Allusions in Beanland: two exhibitions at the Australian War Memorial‘, Honest History, 21 March 2017 updated This is a combined review of For Country, for Nation, about Indigenous service in defence of Australia, and A Home on a…
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Allusions in Beanland: two exhibitions at the Australian War Memorial
David Stephens ‘Allusions in Beanland: two exhibitions at the Australian War Memorial’, Honest History, 21 March 2017 In September 2016, the War Memorial opened For Country, for Nation, an exhibition about Indigenous service in Australian defence forces from the Boer…
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Munro, Doug: ‘How illuminating it has been’: Matthews and McKenna, and their biographies of Manning Clark
Doug Munro “‘How illuminating it has been”: Matthews and McKenna, and their biographies of Manning Clark’, Philip Payton, ed., Emigrants & Historians: Essays in Honour of Eric Richards, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2016, pp. 98-131 (pdf made available courtesy of the…
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Yip, Andrew: Friday essay: video games, military culture and new narratives of war
Andrew Yip ‘Friday essay: video games, military culture and new narratives of war‘, The Conversation, 10 March 2017 Argues that ‘the relationship of video games to history, politics and modern military cultures is no mere child’s play … [I]n video…
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Moses, John: Know your enemy: German war aims and Australian involvement in the Great War
John Moses* ‘Know your enemy: German war aims and Australian involvement in the Great War’, Honest History, 10 March 2017 The author argues that any discussion about the origins and significance of Anzac commemoration will be baseless if it fails…
Magarey, Susan: Catherine Helen Spence: ‘The most distinguished woman they had had in Australia’
Susan Magarey ‘Catherine Helen Spence: ‘”The most distinguished woman they had had in Australia”‘, Vida! Australian Women’s History Network, 1 March 2017 Spence (1825-1910) was ‘[a] charismatic public speaker at a time when women were supposed to speak only at…
Sydney University graduate (and writer for Honest History) appointed Executive Director of Toynbee Prize Foundation
Aden Knaap, a graduate in History and Law from the University of Sydney and now a PhD student and Knox Fellow at Harvard University, has been elected Executive Director of the Toynbee Prize Foundation. The Toynbee Prize was established to…
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Bongiorno, Frank: The Australian history boom has busted, but there’s hope it may boom again
Frank Bongiorno ‘The Australian history boom has busted, but there’s hope it may boom again‘, The Conversation, 25 January 2017 First in a series on Australian identity, this piece from one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters, Frank Bongiorno, looks at…
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Webster, Beth: Budget deficit hoo-ha is about 0.5% of GDP
Beth Webster ‘Budget deficit hoo-ha is about 0.5% of GDP‘, The Conversation, 20 December 2016 A useful corrective to the mainstream media-political class herd mentality that gives too much profile to deficit and surplus and not enough to what should…
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Sherratt, Tim: Turning the inside out: Keynote at Australian Society of Archivists Annual Conference 2016
Tim Sherratt Turning the inside out: Keynote presented at the Australian Society of Archivists Annual Conference, Parramatta, 2016 A detailed examination, using a case study, of ‘the workings of legislation, archival practice and technology’. In this talk, I want to…
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Faber, David: An activist sense of history: indications for users
David Faber* ‘An activist sense of history: indications for users’, Honest History, 20 December 2016 ‘Never underestimate the power of dogma when propagandistically spread about among people who do not know much history.’ (Lawrence Davidson) We all know that those…
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Willis, Ian: Local history: a view from the bottom
Ian Willis ‘Local history: a view from the bottom‘, History Workshop, 5 December 2016 Camden, NSW, historian writes about the practice of local history. Scholars occasionally need to take a look downwards from the heights of the academy to see…
Rizzetti, Janine: Contesting Australian history: a festschrift for Marilyn Lake
Janine Rizzetti ‘Contesting Australian History: a Festschrift for Marilyn Lake‘, The Resident Judge of Port Phillip, 13 December 2016 A report of this recent event held at the University of Melbourne in honour of Professor Marilyn Lake. The author mentions…
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Metz, Walter: At the movies: ‘Canaries’, a review of Denial
Walter Metz ‘At the movies: “Canaries”, a review of Denial‘, Origins (Ohio State University), 23 November 2016 Metz teaches cinema history at Southern Illinois University. This post riffs off the election of Trump and the vogue for ‘post-truth’. Metz notes…
Green, Jonathan: Why must a war define us? Honest History highlights reel
Green, Jonathan ‘Why must a war define us?‘ ABC The Drum, 24 April 2014 (Honest History highlights reel) Over the last three years Honest History has tried to collect significant pieces written about Australia’s relationship with war. We have commissioned…
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Two years of commentary on the Australian War Memorial: from the Honest History archives
Rationale Critiquing the Anzac-centred received view of Australian history necessarily involves forensic examination of the work of our premier commemorative institution, the Australian War Memorial. The Memorial – rather surprisingly, in view of its interest in warlike matters – has…
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Griffiths, Tom: The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft
Griffiths, Tom The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2016 No matter how practised we are at history, it always humbles us. No matter how often we visit the past, it always surprises us. The art…
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An anthropologist, an historian and his historians: Diane Bell on Tom Griffiths
‘An anthropologist, an historian and his historians: Diane Bell on Tom Griffiths’, Honest History, 26 October 2016 Diane Bell* reviews Tom Griffiths, The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft Who is your favourite Australian historian? Why? In 14…
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Stephens, David: Turks did the heavy lifting: a longer look at the building of the Atatürk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1984-85: Part II
David Stephens ‘Turks did the heavy lifting: a longer look at the building of the Atatürk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1984-85: Part II’, Honest History, 25 October 2016 updated This is a revised and extended version of an article…
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Stephens, David: ‘Awkward humility’: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part II: Long bows, Holly Golightly and political baseball bats
Stephens, David ‘“Awkward humility”: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part II: Long bows, Holly Golightly and political baseball bats‘, Honest History, 20 October 2016 This article continues our analysis of ten of Dr Nelson’s speeches from…
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‘Awkward humility’: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part II: Long bows, Holly Golightly and political baseball bats
David Stephens ‘“Awkward humility”: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part II: Long bows, Holly Golightly and political baseball bats’, Honest History, 20 October 2016 updated In our previous article we looked at the structure, themes and…
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O’Malley, Vincent: What a nation chooses to remember and forget: the war for New Zealand’s history
O’Malley, Vincent ‘What a nation chooses to remember and forget: the war for New Zealand’s history‘, Guardian Australia, 18 October 2016 Interesting article for itself and for comparisons with Australia. The author’s book, The Great War for New Zealand Waikato…
‘Awkward humility’: The speeches of the Hon Brendan Nelson AO: Part I: Thrice more with feeling
David Stephens ‘“Awkward humility”: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part I: Thrice more with feeling’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 The received Australian view of war can be encapsulated in phrases like ‘Lest we forget’, ‘the…
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Stephens, David: Turks did the heavy lifting: a longer look at the story of the Ataturk Memorial, Canberra, 1984-85: Part I
David Stephens ‘Turks did the heavy lifting: a longer look at the story of the Atatürk Memorial, Canberra, 1984-85: Part I’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 updated This material revises and extends an article published in April 2016 and based…
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Stephens, David: ‘Awkward humility’: The speeches of the Hon Brendan Nelson, AO: Part I: Thrice more with feeling
Stephens, David ‘” Awkward humility”: The speeches of the Hon Brendan Nelson AO: Part I: Thrice more with feeling‘, Honest History, 11 October 2016 The article analyses ten speeches from 2007 to 2016 regarding their structure, recurring themes and sets…
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Woods, Martin: Where are Our Boys? How Newsmaps Won the Great War
Woods, Martin Where are Our Boys? How Newsmaps Won the Great War, National Library of Australia Publishing, Canberra, 2016 A selection of maps from the National Library’s collection along with detailed explanatory text. The war produced more maps than any…
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Fighting against the tide? (review of Martin Woods on World War I maps)
‘Fighting against the tide?’ (review of Martin Woods on World War I maps), Honest History, 15 September 2016 Peter Stanley reviews Martin Woods, Where are Our Boys? How Newsmaps Won the Great War The National Library of Australia, uniquely now…
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Stephens, David: We go to Rio: questioning received war history
Stephens, David ‘We go to Rio: questioning received war history’, Teaching History (History Teachers’ Association of New South Wales), 50, 3, September 2016, pp. 4-6 Pdf accessible here made available by courtesy of HTANSW, which holds copyright. Anzac may be…
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Snyder, Don: Poland poised to put ‘bad’ historians in prison
Don Snyder ‘Poland poised to put “bad” historians in prison‘, The Forward (New York), 2 September 2016 updated Poland’s parliament is considering a law which would make it a criminal offence to implicate Poland, or the Polish people, in the…
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Clark, Anna: On listening to new national storytellers
Clark, Anna ‘Friday essay: on listening to new national storytellers’, The Conversation, 2 September 2016 The author reminds us that ‘each piece of history has a message and context that depends on who wrote it and when. As the US…
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Six of the best: recent posts on the future of history
Earlier this week we posted Neville Buch’s piece, ‘Do professional historians have a future?’ It has been very popular, with hundreds of views already. Serendipitously, blogs and online sources have thrown up lots of related material. Swansea University historian of…
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Moses, John: The fallacy of Presentism in Australian history
John Moses ‘The fallacy of Presentism in Australian history‘, Honest History, 23 August 2016 The paper seeks to illustrate that historiography can be misused for promoting political agendas. It uses examples from Marxism-Leninism, particularly in the then East Germany and…
Piggott, Michael: Charles Bean’s legacy: UNSW Canberra conference, July 2016
Michael Piggott ‘“Charles Bean’s legacy”: UNSW Canberra conference, July 2016‘, Honest History, 2 August 2016 Update 6 August 2016: Peter Stanley, Honest History professor, Research Professor at UNSW Canberra, and a curator of the Bean exhibition, writes about the exhibition.…
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Charles Bean’s legacy: UNSW Canberra conference, July 2016
Michael Piggott ‘”Charles Bean’s legacy”: UNSW Canberra conference, July 2016’, Honest History, 2 August 2016 For once in considering a conference, the curate’s egg judgment ‘good in parts’ doesn’t apply, though this conference did have parts and it was hosted…
Baker, Mark: The myth of Keith Murdoch’s Gallipoli letter
Baker, Mark ‘The myth of Keith Murdoch’s Gallipoli letter‘, Inside Story, 26 July 2016 Extract from the author’s new book, Phillip Schuler: The Remarkable Life of One of Australia’s Greatest War Correspondents, just published. A brief biographical note on Schuler…
Sherratt, Tim: Unremembering the forgotten: Digital Humanities 2015 keynote
Sherratt, Tim Unremembering the forgotten: Keynote address, Digital Humanities 2015, University of Western Sydney, 3 July 2015 The article looks at some aspects of the history of science in Australia, including how we have been visited by scientists from overseas.…
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Stephens, David: How some Turks would rather that Johnnies and Mehmets were not equal
David Stephens ‘How some Turks would rather that Johnnies and Mehmets were not equal: research report’, Honest History, 19 July 2016 updated The equality of death ‘There is no difference’, we are told every Anzac Day, ‘between the Johnnies and…
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Ozakinci, Cengiz: 25 April 1985: Arıburnu, “Anzac Cove”, the Mehmets and the Johnnies
Özakıncı, Cengiz ‘25 April 1985: Arıburnu, “Anzac Cove”, the Mehmets and the Johnnies’, Butun Dunya (Ankara), April 2016 (English translation) This article looks from the Turkish perspective at how Arıburnu became Anzac Cove, as part of a Turkish-Australian deal in…
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Loewen, James W.: Lies my teacher told me
Loewen, James W. ‘Lies my teacher told me‘, Information Clearing House, 9 July 2016 Undated video interview with Loewen, who is a sociologist critical of the received view of American history. Loewen’s widely read Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything…
Viner, Katharine: How technology disrupted the truth
Katharine Viner ‘How technology disrupted the truth‘, The Guardian, 12 July 2016 updated More than 1500 comments on this article by Guardian editor-in-chief about how ‘[s]ocial media has swallowed the news – threatening the funding of public-interest reporting and ushering…
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American historians use Facebook to blow the whistle on Donald Trump
A number of distinguished American historians, led by David McCullough (Truman, John Adams) and Ken Burns (The Civil War), have started a Facebook page to oppose the candidacy of Donald Trump. While the group is conscious of the need to…
Sherratt, Tim: Investigating the Hansard black hole
Sherratt, Tim ‘Investigating the Hansard black hole‘, Tim Sherratt: Research Notebook, 29 May, 10 July 2016 Not about the Budget black hole this time but about deficiencies in the ParlInfo search engine which countless people have used for research in…
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Johnson, Ian: China’s memory manipulators (on the use and abuse of history – a world-wide phenomenon)
Johnson, Ian ‘China’s memory manipulators‘, Guardian, 8 June 2016 Honest History has followed recent events in the South China Sea because of their relevance to Australia. We are also interested in material that shows how governments manipulate history, for example,…
Öztürk, Özgür: Gallipoli campaign: a symbolic battleground
Öztürk, Özgür ‘Gallipoli campaign: a symbolic battleground‘, Geliboluyuanlamak (Understanding Gallipoli), 24 June 2016 This is an essay from a Turkish MA student on the blog of Dr Tuncay Yilmazer, a Turkish specialist in the Ottoman Empire and the Great War.…
Steele, Colin: How The Sex Lives of Australians upset a PM and the PM’s Literary Awards
Steele, Colin ‘How The Sex Lives of Australians upset a PM and the PM’s Literary Awards‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June 2016 updated Update 23 June 2016: Patrick Allington in The Conversation discusses the issues. The author of this article…
Stephens, David: Keepers of the flame: making war memorial councils more representative
David Stephens ‘Keepers of the flame: why do the people who control our war memorials look so different from the rest of us and why does this matter?’ Honest History, 7 June 2016 This article analyses the composition of the…
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Keepers of the flame: making war memorial councils more representative
David Stephens ‘Keepers of the flame: why do the people who control our war memorials look so different from the rest of us and why does this matter?’ Honest History, 7 June 2016 updated Contents The Australian War Memorial Act…
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From the Honest History Archives: Tangled up in red, white and blue
‘From the Honest History archives: Tangled up in red, white and blue (September 2013)’, Honest History, 7 June 2016 The Honest History website now includes more than 2000 posts and pages, many of them containing original writing. Readers can find…
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Tendering for the knight: film-makers bid to document Sir John Monash for the green fields of France
Regular readers of Honest History will have followed our coverage of the proposed Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre to be built next to the Australian memorial at Villers-Bretonneux in France. We have described the Centre as a boastful Aussie boondoggle.…
Hillman, Nick: The ten commandments for influencing policymakers
Hillman, Nick ‘The ten commandments for influencing policymakers‘, Times Higher Education Supplement, 26 May 2016 Honest History has always been interested in how the discipline of history can be used for good or ill in government. Many of our resources…
Kindt, Julia: Guide to the classics: The Histories by Herodotus
Kindt, Julia ‘Guide to the classics: The Histories by Herodotus‘, The Conversation, 23 May 2016 For his pioneering critical enquiry into the past [Herodotus] was named “father of history” by Cicero. His love of stories and storytelling, however, was notorious…
Wright, Clare: Who will be Australia’s future folk heroes?
Wright, Clare ‘Who will be Australia’s future folk heroes?‘ The Conversation, 19 May 2016 Riffs off the capture of five Australian citizens attempting to leave the country without passports, allegedly to fight in Syria. Compares Ned Kelly with Man Haron…
Clark, Anna: Private Lives, Public History
Clark, Anna Private Lives, Public History, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2016 The past is consumed on a grand scale: popularised by television programs, enjoyed by reading groups, walking groups, historical societies and heritage tours, and supported by unprecedented digital…
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Ankara calling: the rush to build the Ataturk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1984-85
‘Ankara calling: the rush to build the Atatürk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1984-85’, Honest History, 26 April 2016 (Note: a summary version of this article appeared in Pearls and Irritations.; an extended two-part version, using more sources, commences here.)…
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Alomes, Stephen: Our national folly: war romance and the Australian national imaginary
Alomes, Stephen ‘Our national folly: war romance and the Australian national imaginary‘, Anne-Marie Hede & Ruth Rentchsler, ed., Reflections on ANZAC Day: From One Millennium to the Next, Heidelberg Press, Heidelberg, Vic., 2010, pp. 89-105 (text made available by the…
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Carr, Nicholas: When our culture’s past is lost in the cloud
Carr, Nicholas ‘When our culture’s past is lost in the cloud‘, Washington Post, 25 March 2016 A review of Abby Smith Rumsey’s book When We are No More: How Digital Memory is Shaping our Future. (Perhaps significantly, some editions of…
Daley, Paul: It’s not “politically correct” to say Australia was invaded, it’s history
Daley, Paul ‘It’s not “politically correct” to say Australia was invaded, it’s history‘, Guardian Australia, 30 March 2016 updated This article comments on the Daily Telegraph‘s comment on a diversity guide at the University of New South Wales, pointing out…
Barnwell, Ashley: The Secret River, silences and our nation’s history
Barnwell, Ashley ‘The Secret River, silences and our nation’s history‘, The Conversation, 28 March 2016 Explores the controversy surrounding the current stage adaptation of Kate Grenville’s novel, The Secret River. This controversy extends that associated with the original book: it…
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Edwell, Penny: Review note: First World War Commemoration and Memory Conference, IWM North
Penny Edwell* ‘Review note: First World War Commemoration and Memory Conference, IWM North’, Honest History, 17 March 2016 Organised by the Imperial War Museum North Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers Network (FWW Network), the First World War: Commemoration and Memory…
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Bird, Jacqueline: In the matter of Agent Orange: Vietnam veterans versus the Australian War Memorial
Bird, Jacqueline* ‘In the matter of Agent Orange: Vietnam veterans versus the Australian War Memorial‘, Honest History, 15 March 2016 A detailed account of more than twenty years of history, leading up to the agreement by the Australian War Memorial…
Brookes, John: Constructing nationalism: telling us how it is on Anzac
Brookes, John* ‘Constructing nationalism: telling us how it is on Anzac‘, Honest History, 15 March 2016 The article explores how nationalism is ‘a politically constructed discourse designed to delineate and reveal a community to itself. The rise of Anzac in…
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Walsh, Michael JK & Andrekos Varnava, ed.: Australia and the Great War
Walsh, Michael JK & Andrekos Varnava, ed. Australia and the Great War: Identity, Memory and Mythology, MUP Academic, Carlton, 2016 Australia and the Great War explores both the immediate and long-term consequences of the war on this complex relationship, looking in…
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Martyrs’ Day in Turkey and what probably did not happen on 18 March 1934
‘Martyrs’ Day in Turkey and what probably did not happen on 18 March 1934: recent research from Cengiz Özakinci’, Honest History, 15 March 2016 updated Background The date 18 March marks the anniversary of the Ottoman naval victory in 1915,…
In the matter of Agent Orange: Vietnam veterans versus the Australian War Memorial
Jacqueline Bird ‘In the matter of Agent Orange: Vietnam veterans versus the Australian War Memorial’, Honest History, 15 March 2016 * CONTENTS Opening comments Initial reaction to FB Smith’s work The 2008 trigger at the War Memorial The case against…
Constructing nationalism: telling us how it is on Anzac
John Brookes* ‘Constructing nationalism: telling us how it is on Anzac’, Honest History, 15 March 2015 Nationalism is a politically constructed discourse intended to delineate and reveal a community to itself. The rise of Anzac in Australia in the last…
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David Rieff: When history does more harm than good: Highlights reel
‘When history does more harm than good: highlights reel’, Honest History, 15 March 2016 David Rieff is about to publish a new book In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies. His short work, Against Remembrance, published in 2011,…
Fathi, Romain: ‘A piece of Australia in France’: Anzac Day at Villers-Bretonneux
Fathi, Romain ‘”A piece of Australia in France”: Australian authorities and the commemoration of Anzac Day at Villers-Bretonneux in the last decade’, Shanti Sumartojo & Ben Wellings, ed. Nation, Memory and Great War Communication, Peter Lang, Bern & Oxford, 2014,…
Stephens, David: ‘The Australian War Memorial is happy to let your opinion stand as it is’
Stephens, David ‘“The Australian War Memorial is happy to let your opinion stand as it is”: the Memorial’s response to recent posts on the Honest History website‘, Honest History, 22 February 2016 Commentary on recent response from the Memorial to…
‘The Australian War Memorial is happy to let your opinion stand as it is’: AWM response to recent Honest History posts
David Stephens ‘“The Australian War Memorial is happy to let your opinion stand as it is”: the Memorial’s response to recent posts on the Honest History website’, Honest History, 22 February 2016 Honest History readers will recall our articles remarking…
‘Visitation’ numbers at the Australian War Memorial since 1991: is this joint really jumpin’?
David Stephens ‘“Visitation” numbers at the Australian War Memorial since 1991: is this joint really jumpin’?’ Honest History, 2 February 2016 updated The title of this piece needs some explanation. First, ‘visitation’. The author thought this word meant the visit…
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Stephens, David: ‘Visitation’ numbers at the Australian War Memorial since 1991
Stephens, David ‘“Visitation” numbers at the Australian War Memorial since 1991: is this joint really jumpin’?’ Honest History, 2 February 2016 updated Update 7 February 2017: One year on: analysis of visitor statistics in the Memorial’s Annual Report for 2015-16. (The…
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McLoughlin, Liam: Australia Day: BBQs, beer goggles and Oi, Oi, Oi
McLoughlin, Liam ‘Australia Day: barbecues and beer goggles and Oi, Oi, Oi,’ New Matilda, 20 January 2016 Young writer surveys the big day, looking at jingoism, toxic masculinity, a horror movie from 1988, an Ocker video and a parody thereof,…
Minister defends expensive Monash boondoggle* while sod is turned
Update 25 October 2017: the publicity machine cranks up as the opening of the centre approaches. Update 21 January 2016: augmented version now up on Independent Australia. FRENCH COVERAGE NOW ADDED; SEE BELOW Anzac centenary minister, Stuart Robert, has wielded…
Ozakinci, Cengiz: Tale of the Anzacs who took Mustafa Kemal prisoner in 1918
Ozakinci, Cengiz ‘The tale of “the Anzacs who took Mustafa Kemal prisoner” in the Australian press’, Butun Dunya (Ankara), December 2015 (English translation: part I; part II) Chauvel, 1919 (AWM ART03340/JP Quinn) This is a translation provided by the author…
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Kahn, Andrew & Rebecca Onion: Is history written by men, about men?
Kahn, Andrew & Rebecca Onion ‘Is history written by men, about men?‘ Slate, 6 January 2016 We examined a set of 614 works of popular history from 80 houses, which either published books we defined as trade history or landed…
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Marshall, Colin: Download 180 000 images from New York Public Library
Marshall, Colin ‘The New York Public Library lets you download 180,000 images in High Resolution: historic photographs, maps, letters & more‘, Open Culture, 7 January 2016 At a time when far too many online resources are still littered with the…
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Stephens, David: A century since we stole quietly away
Stephens, David ‘A century since we stole quietly away‘, Honest History, 23 December 2015 updated Marks the centenary of the evacuation of ANZAC troops from Gallipoli and describes the commemorative ceremony at the Australian War Memorial. Anzac remains, according to…
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A century since we stole quietly away
David Stephens ‘A century since we stole quietly away’, Honest History, 23 December 2015 To judge from Trove (the National Library’s newspaper database) the first news of the successful evacuation from Gallipoli arrived in time for the evening editions of…
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Honest History Christmas miscellany 2015: lots to read and ponder
‘Honest History Christmas miscellany 2015: lots to read and ponder’, Honest History, 20 December 2015 Christmas often brings a reckoning and it is the same in our compact little enterprise. We would have loved to have afforded some of the…
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McKenna, Mark & Stuart Ward: Anzac myth and creative memorialisation
McKenna, Mark & Stuart Ward ‘An Anzac myth: the creative memorialisation of Gallipoli‘, The Monthly, December 2015 (temporary pay-wall) Australian-Turkish friendship has become in 2015 a pillar of the Anzac legend. The work of Paul Daley and Cengiz Ozakinci (and,…
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No sign of Ataturk’s minister at Anzac, April-May 1934
‘Gold, rum but no sign of Ataturk’s minister at Anzac, April-May 1934’, Honest History, 1 December 2015 We return to the provenance of the famous ‘Ataturk words’ of 1934 – the ones commencing ‘Those heroes that shed their blood and…
Eales, Robert: Morant, the expendable icon & other Boer War resources
Eales, Robert ‘Morant, the expendable icon‘ (and other Boer War resources), Boer War Topics (website) Update 28 November 2020: Military historian Tom Richardson reviews Peter FitzSimons’ Morant book in Nine Newspapers and gives it a mixed report. ‘Still, for all…
Wilkie, Douglas: the convict ship Hashemy and historical error
Wilkie, Douglas ‘The convict ship “Hashemy” at Port Phillip: a case study in historical error‘, Victorian Historical Journal, 85, 1, June 2014, pp. 31-53 Received history is that the convict ship Hashemy was turned away from Melbourne in 1849 and…
Finding Australian history resources
‘What’s the best way into Australian history resources?’ Honest History, 13 October 2015 First, there’s the Honest History website. There’s a guide to the site and we recommend browsing. You will see that, while we target issues of current relevance,…
Flitton, Daniel: ANZAC centenary’s costly history lessons
Flitton, Daniel ‘ANZAC centenary: the costly price of history lessons‘, The Age, 10 October 2015 Discusses the politics of the Monash interpretive centre at Villers-Bretonneux, quoting historians Joan Beaumont, Bruce Scates and Peter Stanley with criticisms. The Department of Veterans’…
War correspondents: Canberra memorial; resources on HH site
Update 25 October 2015: extract from Jeannine Baker’s Australian Women War Reporters: Boer War to Vietnam Update 26 September 2015: more from Nicholas Stuart and Gai Brodtmann MP. Update 25 September 2015: Helen Vatsikopoulos writes. A cheeky reflection from Mark…
Victoria, Brian: war remembrance in Japan (two parts)
Victoria, Brian ‘War remembrance in Japan’s Buddhist cemeteries, Part I: Kannon hears the cries of war‘, Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 13, Issue 31, No. 3, August 3, 2015; ‘Part II: Transforming war criminals into Martyrs: “true words” on Mt.…
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Echevarria’s trouble with (military) history: highlights reel
‘Echevarria’s trouble with (military) history: highlights reel’, Honest History, 12 September 2015 This post offers highlights from an article that is at once a decade old and more broadly relevant than just to the teaching of military history. Antulio J.…
Ozakinci, Cengiz: how Ataturk did not meet Birdwood in 1918
Ozakinci, Cengiz ‘One hundred years of error: Ataturk, Birdwood, Harington and Canakkale 1915‘, Butun Dunya (Ankara), September 2015 (translated into English) In this article, Ozakinci busts the myth that Ataturk and British General Birdwood met in Istanbul in October 1918 and…
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Radojevic, Mira & Ljubodrag Dimic: Serbia in the Great War
Radojević, Mira & Ljubodrag Dimić Serbia in the Great War 1914-1918: a Short History, Srpska knjizevna zadruga (Serbian Literary Cooperative), Belgrade, 2nd edition, 2014 Serbia in the Great War 1914-1918 is a book of facts based on well-known sources and documents. Affirming…
Gluckstein, Donny, ed.: Fighting on all fronts
Gluckstein, Donny, ed. Fighting on All Fronts: Popular Resistance in the Second World War, Bookmarks, London, 2015 Collection of ten articles and introduction. Fighting on All Fronts brings together ten writers to take up the story of popular resistance. The…
Stephens, David: Freedom and the Australian War Memorial: is Honest History not a force for good?
Stephens, David ‘Freedom and the Australian War Memorial: is Honest History not a force for good?‘, Honest History, 1 September 2015 Honest History’s secretary and editor traces the often fraught relationship between Honest History and the Australian War Memorial, which…
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Freedom and the Australian War Memorial: is Honest History not a force for good?
David Stephens ‘Freedom and the Australian War Memorial: is Honest History not a force for good?’, Honest History, 1 September 2015 Communication has always been central to warfare. Carrier pigeons, flags, field telephones, Mel Gibson rushing through the trenches in…
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Redressing historical inadequacies? review of two books on two wars
‘Redressing historical inadequacies?’ Honest History, 1 September 2015 Derek Abbott* reviews Serbia in the Great War 1914-1918, by Mira Radojevic and Ljubodrag Dimic, and Fighting on All Fronts: Popular Resistance in the Second World War, edited by Donny Gluckstein. These…
Radio New Zealand National: Easter over Anzac
Radio New Zealand National ‘Easter over Anzac‘, The Panel, 26 August 2015 Brief (five minute) chat between panellists Ali Jones, Damon Salesa and Joe Mora about the relative merits of Easter, Waitangi Day and Anzac Day as occasions for commemoration…
Stephens, David: Anzackery: parochial puffery a century on
David Stephens ‘Anzackery: parochial puffery a century on‘, Honest History, 25 August 2015 This speech, including Powerpoint slides, was prepared for a professional development session for Museums of New South Wales. The session was cancelled but the speech has been…
Stephens, David: ‘There will be blood’: ministers and the military responsibility of children
David Stephens ‘“There will be blood”: ministerial remarks on the responsibility of children‘, Pearls and Irritations, 22 August 2015 Traces the fascination of authority figures with the concept of blood sacrifice. The blood sacrifice of children was evident in ancient…
Talking about Turkey in the 1960s: highlights reel
‘Talking about Turkey in the 1960s: highlights reel’, Honest History, 22 August 2015 The Returned and Services League (RSL) papers in the National Library of Australia constitute about the largest of that cultural institution’s massive collection of manuscripts. And about…
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War propaganda for children should not win prizes: Honest History media release 21 August 2015
Update 24 August 2015: ABC report ‘It is disgraceful that a piece of sanitised war propaganda has won a Children’s Book Council Award’, the Honest History coalition said today. ‘Giving a prize to the book Audacity endorses promotional material from…
Stephens, David: Public Works Committee’s paddle in Monash museum
Stephens, David ‘Public Works Committee’s paddle in Monash museum‘, Honest History, 19 August 2015 Our third article on the Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre proposed for Villers-Bretonneux in France. It briefly analyses the Public Works Committee report, tabled in the…
Public Works Committee’s paddle in Monash museum
David Stephens ‘Public Works Committee’s paddle in the Monash museum’, Honest History, 19 August 2015 This is the third in our series considering the Monash project at Villers-Bretonneux, France. Earlier articles looked at the submission from the Department of Veterans’…
Battistella, Edwin: how to write a compelling book review
Battistella, Edwin ‘How to write a compelling book review‘, OUPBlog, 11 August 2015 We normally write and/or publish the things but this seemed such good advice we thought we’d post it for the edification of all. The author kicks off…
Comment on Salahi Sonyel’s 1989 Ataturk biography
David Stephens ‘Comments on Salahi Sonyel’s 1989 Ataturk biography’, Honest History, 14 August 2015 Thank you to Turkish correspondents on Twitter for passing on details of the book by Salahi R. Sonyel, Ataturk: the Father of Modern Turkey, Turkish Historical…
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Ozakinci, Cengiz: two more articles on ‘Ataturk words’ of 1934
Ozakinci, Cengiz Updates 14 August 2015: (1) we provide a comment on Turkish-supplied information about a 1989 book; (2) note that, for footnote 5 to the second (August) Ozakinci article, you need to go to the notes in the original…
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Leadbeater, Tim: Anzac Day and politics of forgetting (Aotearoa New Zealand)
Leadbeater, Tim ‘Anzac Day and the politics of forgetting‘, 100yearsoftrenches.blogspot, 8 August 2015 Text of (long) speech delivered to International Socialist Organisation meetings in Wellington and Dunedin. It is a fascinating ‘compare and contrast’ exercise for readers on the western…
Nevius, James: ignoring half the history of a country
Nevius, James ‘To teach only “American exceptionalism” is to ignore half the country’s story‘, Guardian Australia, 3 August 2015 Ostensibly an American story but relevant to every country, including Australia, where it is a theme Honest History has returned to…
Stephens, David: Monash interpretive centre, Villers-Bretonneux (II)
Stephens, David ‘Monash interpretive centre (Immersion II of II): Public Works Committee dips toe in water‘, Honest History, 4 August 2015 The article considers further the proposal to build the Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre at Villers-Bretonneux, France, at a…
Stanley, Peter: Çanakkale conference reflections 2015
Stanley, Peter ‘Headphones, genocide and Fanta: reflections on the Çanakkale Gallipoli conference’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 This is an extended report of a major international conference held at Çanakkale, Turkey, in May 2015, with participants from many countries. The…
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Stephens, David: And the children went: Hands on History at the War Memorial
Stephens, David ‘“And the children went”: Hands on History at the Australian War Memorial‘, Honest History, 4 August 2015 A description of a ‘Hands on History’ session for school children on holidays, leading in to an assessment of how the…
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Monash interpretive centre, Villers-Bretonneux (II)
David Stephens ‘Monash interpretive centre (Immersion II of II): Public Works Committee dips toe in water’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 updated We find it difficult to treat this project as anything other than a massively self-indulgent and boastful boondoggle*,…
And the children went: Hands on History at the War Memorial
David Stephens ‘”And the children went”: Hands on History at the Australian War Memorial in the school holidays’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 During the last school holidays, the Australian War Memorial ran some ‘Hands on History’ sessions for children.…
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Çanakkale Gallipoli conference reflections 2015
Peter Stanley ‘Headphones, genocide and Fanta: reflections on the Çanakkale Gallipoli conference’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 ‘International’ conferences are often hard work, hard to organise, hard to fund, hard to run and hard to attend, especially as an ‘international’…
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Four takes on war and how to look at it
We wanted to run these again, particularly a week ahead of the simultaneous (pretty much) anniversaries of Lone Pine and Hiroshima. The first two items put our war history in perspective; the third might look like an easy mark but…
Kelly. T. Mills: historical method through hoaxes
Kelly, T. Mills ‘Teaching students to lie: historical method through hoaxes‘, The Conversation, 18 August 2012 Fifty-one posters commented on this article which claims that, when you teach students how to lie, they become better historians. Kelly’s aim is to…
Griffiths, Tom: on Graeme Davison’s Lost Relations
Griffiths, Tom ‘The story behind the story’, Inside Story, 24 July 2015 A long essay on Graeme Davison’s new book, Lost Relations: Fortunes of My Family in Australia’s Golden Age, which also provokes musings by Griffiths about the nature of…
Stephens, David: Money, Monash and motive: analysing a project in France (I)
Stephens, David ‘Money, Monash and motive: the Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Bretonneux (Immersion I of II)‘, Honest History, 7 July 2015 An analysis of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs submission to the Public Works Committee hearing on the Monash centre…
Money, Monash and motive: analysing a project in France (I)
David Stephens ‘Money, Monash and motive: the Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Bretonneux (Immersion I of II)’, Honest History, 7 July 2015 The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works (PWC) considered the Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre on 26 June and…
Australian Teachers of Media: Screen Education study guides
Australian Teachers of Media Metro Magazine Screen Education Study Guides The site contains links to many resources, notably study guides to many Australian television productions, including The War That Changed Us, Gallipoli, and Australia: the Story of Us, all reviewed…
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Houlbrook, Matt: being a one trick historian
Houlbrook, Matt ‘On being a one trick historian‘, The Trickster Prince, 29 June 2015 The author looks at why he always ends up writing the same sort of history. Habits shape and constrain how we work as historians. From the…
Ted Dionne’s politics of history
Honest History tries to draw links between current events and their precedents and analogues. EJ (Ted) Dionne is a liberal American political commentator who thinks along similar lines. These two paragraphs come from his most recent book, Our Divided Political…
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Evans, Mark: Evidence-based policy making
Evans, Mark ‘Evidence-based policy making: what Westminster policy officers say they do and why‘, The Policy Space, 16 June 2015 This article appears in a blog from the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis at the University of Canberra. It…
Mascall-Dare, Sharon: Ethical journalism during the Anzac centenary
Mascall-Dare, Sharon ‘All is not lost: ethical journalism during the Anzac centenary‘, Honest History, 18 June 2015 A journalist and journalism educator looks at the possibilities for ethnographic journalism to replace the formulaic, cut-and-paste methods that have been typical of…
Ethical journalism during the Anzac centenary
Sharon Mascall-Dare ‘All is not lost: the case for ethical journalism during the Anzac centenary’, Honest History, 18 June 2015 The following is an extract from a presentation at the Canakkale-Gallipoli Wars Conference held in Canakkale, Turkey, 21-24 May 2015.…
Sangha, Laura: What is history for?
Sangha, Laura ‘What is history for? Or: doing history/thinking historically‘, The Many-headed Monster, 16 June 2015 Blog piece based on a lecture to a second year university class. Researching, says the author, ‘I was struck by the fact that the…
Ataturk in the City of Hume, Victoria: Honest History Factsheet
‘Ataturk in the City of Hume, Victoria: Honest History Factsheet’, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Update 19 June 2015: media coverage in Hume Leader. _______________ Honest History’s research on the ‘Ataturk words’ of 1934 is here, summarised in a media…
Review note: accessing three special editions
‘Review note: accessing three special editions’, Honest History, 9 June 2015 The title of this note is chosen deliberately: while, like any review, this one will do some assessing it is also concerned with accessing – with how the reader…
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Manne, Robert, Robin Prior & Carolyn Holbrook: What really happened at Gallipoli?
Manne, Robert, Robin Prior & Carolyn Holbrook ‘What really happened at Gallipoli?’ La Trobe University Ideas and Society, Melbourne, 23 April 2015 A conversation before an audience regarding, first, events at Gallipoli up until December 1915 (Manne and Prior) then,…
Wilson, AN: The Book of the People
Wilson, AN The Book of the People: How to Read the Bible, Atlantic Books, London, 2015 A. N. Wilson has been thinking about the Bible, and reading it, since he read theology for a year at university. Martin Luther King…
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Still the good book? (review of AN Wilson)
‘Still the good book?’ Honest History, 27 May 2015 David Stephens reviews AN Wilson’s The Book of the People: How to Read the Bible My grandmother was 96 when she died. Her eulogy mentioned that she had read her Bible…
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Stephens, David: constructing emotions (centenary spend)
Stephens, David ‘Constructing emotions: Australia leads world in WWI commemoration spend‘, Independent Australia, 19 May 2015 (This is an updated version of the piece here, dated 12 May.) The recently (re-)announced $100 million for a hi-tech museum in France is…
Rees, Peter: Bearing witness (CEW Bean)
Peter Rees Bearing Witness: the Remarkable Life of CEW Bean, Australia’s Greatest War Correspondent, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2015 A full biography of the man known as CEW Bean – war correspondent and official historian of World War…
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Newton, Douglas: Two Anzac speeches 2015
Douglas Newton ‘Two Anzac speeches 2015’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 updated Douglas Newton spoke on 22 April 2015 at Petersham Town Hall, Sydney, to a meeting of the Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign, based in Marrickville. The speech covered respect…
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Anzac Day talk at Crows Nest Uniting Church (Douglas Newton)
Douglas Newton ‘Anzac Day talk at Crows Nest Uniting Church, 26 April 2015, Honest History, 12 May 2015 (Note: this is one of two related speeches) 1. Respect The Great War was such a sprawling catastrophe that I am sure…
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Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign Talk (Douglas Newton)
Douglas Newton ‘Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign Talk: Petersham Town Hall, 22 April 2015’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 (Note: one of two related speeches) 1. Respect At the outset I should say that I do not presume to tell anyone…
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National Museum of Australia: Home front exhibition
National Museum of Australia The Home Front: Australia during the First World War The exhibition opened on 3 April 2015 and will run till 11 October. The Home Front explores the pride, sorrow, passion, wonder and joy experienced by Australians far…
Gamut of emotions: the Home Front at the National Museum
‘Gamut of emotions: the Home Front at the National Museum’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 Michael Piggott reviews the National Museum of Australia’s exhibition, The Home Front. Here’s a challenge to think about over the next ten minutes. If you…
ABC News 24 One-plus-One: with Clare Wright
ABC TV ‘Clare Wright‘, ABC News 24 One-plus-One, 24 April 2015 (video only) Historian Clare Wright talks with Jane Hutcheon about her early life, her early work on women in the liquor industry, her Stella Prize-winning book The Forgotten Rebels…
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Valentine, James: Gallipoli, the story we all grew up with
Valentine, James ‘Gallipoli: the story we all grew up with‘, Age, 26 April 2015 (Story has different titles in other Fairfax outlets.) We are highlighting this one because of its remarkable resonance with the ideas that have been put forward…
Yanikdag, Yucel: politics of Gallipoli – Turkish view
Yanikdag, Yucel ‘The battle of Gallipoli: the politics of remembering and forgetting in Turkey‘, Comillas Journal of International Relations [Madrid], 2, 2015, pp. 99-115 Differences in the competing versions of public memory for the Battle of Gallipoli have become more…
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Daley, Paul: Quarantining Anzac Day from politicians
Daley, Paul ‘Anzac Day should be quarantined from politicians – a solemn moment to reflect on the agony of war‘, Guardian Australia, 23 April 2015 In a generation’s time the Anzacs will have slipped from living memory entirely. None of…
Sentiment, thought and jingoism in war commemoration
We ran this post as a ‘highlights reel‘ back in September and we have quoted it a number of times since. It says such profound things about commemoration we thought it was worth running again at a time which Minister…
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Stephens, David: rebooting Anzac
David Stephens ‘Rebooting Anzac for the next century‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 April 2015 (and in other Fairfax) Traditions that are not continually refreshed become quaint and irrelevant and eventually die. The Anzac tradition has waxed and waned over a…
Daley, Paul: Ataturk’s words about Anzacs shrouded in doubt
Daley, Paul ‘Ataturk’s “Johnnies and Mehmets” words about the Anzacs are shrouded in doubt‘, Guardian Australia, 20 April 2015 and updated Examines the famous Ataturk words of 1934, drawing upon research by the Turkish scholar, Cengiz Ozakinci. Links to a…
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Tracking Ataturk: Honest History research note
Tracking Ataturk: Honest History research note NB: for later research on this subject go here Introduction Myths often take the place of history, particularly when stories are complex, facts are lacking, and audiences need comfort. This outcome seems to have…
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TV3NZ News: Australia’s Anzac obsession
TV3NZ News ‘Australia’s Anzac obsession‘, The Nation, 18 April 2015 Anzackery gets introduced to the people of Aotearoa New Zealand by producer-presenter Tony Wright with interviews with Peter Stanley and David Stephens from Honest History. There is to be a…
Aubusson, Kate: Gen Y on questioning Anzac
Kate Aubusson ‘Why my generation grew up thinking it was un-Australian to question Anzac‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 April 2015 Article from a young journalist, presaging presentation of her TV documentary Lest We Forget What? (Iview for limited time) She…
Schultz, Julianne, Peter Cochrane, et al.: Enduring legacies
Schultz, Julianne, Peter Cochrane, et al. ‘Enduring legacies‘, Griffith Review, 48, 2015; available online to subscribers Update 7 May 2015: Honest History attended a discussion at the National Library with about 150 others. Julianne Schultz, editor of this volume, wrangled…
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Investing our legacies
‘Investing our legacies’, Honest History, 16 April 2015 David Stephens reviews Griffith Review 48, ‘Enduring legacies’, edited by Julianne Schultz and Peter Cochrane The title of this excellent collection is, at one level, obvious but, at another, full of possibilities.…
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Stephens, David: magic Anzackery pudding
Stephens, David ‘The magic Anzackery pudding‘, Honest History, 9 April 2015 Guest posting on 7 April on John Menadue’s blog. Norman Lindsay was busy during World War I. When he wasn’t doing propaganda posters of slavering Huns or sketching buxom…
Daley, Paul: Indigenous Diggers and Anzackery
Daley, Paul ‘Indigenous Diggers and the new age of Anzackery‘, Meanjin, 2 April 2015 Contrasts the commemorative festival with the treatment of an atypical Indigenous Digger, caught between cultures. The opening paragraphs are a good summary of the history of…
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Stephens, David: Five arguments for downsizing Anzac
David Stephens ‘Five arguments for downsizing Anzac’, Teaching History (History Teachers’ Association of New South Wales), 49, 1, March 2015, pp. 16-19 Pdf accessible here made available by courtesy of HTANSW, which holds copyright. We need to make Anzac less…
Stephens, David: Peter FitzSimons: poltergeist with two brains
Stephens, David ‘Peter FitzSimons: poltergeist with two brains‘, Inside Story, 25 March 2015 A review of FitzSimons’ Gallipoli which makes some general points about FitzSimons as a ‘storian’ who should unleash his inner historian. The article argues that FitzSimons’ style…
What Kemal (probably, possibly) did: Ataturk’s letter
The Gallipoli 1915: a century on conference last week heard mentions of the famous ‘Atatürk letter’. We have a number of relevant references on the Honest History website, some of them incorporating research that others may not have done. These…
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Conway, Michael: Problem with history classes
Conway, Michael ‘The problem with history classes‘, The Atlantic, 16 March 2015 Currently, most students learn history as a set narrative—a process that reinforces the mistaken idea that the past can be synthesized into a single, standardized chronicle of several…
Hawkins, Jo: Anzac for sale
Jo Hawkins ‘Anzac for sale: consumer culture, regulation and the shaping of a legend, 1915–21‘, Australian Historical Studies, 46, 1, 2015, pp. 7-26 After the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915, the word Anzac began to appear with increasing frequency…
Brasch, Sarah: Our national cathedral? Last Post at the Memorial
Sarah Brasch ‘Our national cathedral?‘ Honest History, 15 March 2015 Describes the Last Post ceremony held almost every evening at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The author finds the ceremony ‘has a liturgy all of its own and a…
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Our national cathedral?
‘Our national cathedral?’ Honest History, 15 March 2015 Sarah Brasch* attends the Last Post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial Unlike Washington DC, Canberra does not have a National Cathedral. But since 17 April 2013 our capital has had something…
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Denniss, Richard: Economists and Manning Clark
Denniss, Richard ‘What economists can learn from Manning Clark: 2015 Manning Clark lecture, Australian National University, Canberra, 3 March 2015‘, Manning Clark House This is an audio of the lecture plus a separate audio of questions and answers. It may…
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Piggott, Michael: storytellers for a nation?
Piggott, Michael ‘National cultural institutions: story-tellers for a nation?‘ reCollections (National Museum of Australia), 10, 1, 2015 For almost a decade now, the terms “story” and “storytelling” have been used as a marketing and branding theme by many of Australia’s…
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Stephens, David: Why does Honest History review movies and TV shows?
Stephens, David ‘Why does Honest History review movies and TV shows?‘ Honest History, 3 March 2015 The article gives three answers to the question posed, the most important answer being that ‘film and TV portrayals of historical events stumble around…
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Why does Honest History review movies and TV shows?
David Stephens ‘Why does Honest History review movies and TV shows?’ Honest History, 3 March 2015 Regular browsers of our site will know we are offering reviews of movies and television shows that have a war theme. Last year we…
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Weaponising
‘History isn’t what happened, but a story of what happened. And there are always different versions, different stories, about the same events. One version might revolve mainly around a specific set of facts while another version might minimize them or…
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North, David: The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century
North, David The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century, Mehring Books, Strawberry Hills, NSW, 2014; e-book available One hundred years after the outbreak of World War I and the Russian Revolution, none of the problems of the twentieth century—devastating…
Russian Revolution, world history and Australia
‘The Russian Revolution, world history and Australia’, Honest History, 18 February 2015 David Stephens reviews David North’s The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century (and notes the same author’s In Defense of Leon Trotsky) Elsewhere on this website historians…
Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee: contested Vietnam history
Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee ‘Whose history of the Vietnam War will prevail?‘ History News Network, 4 January 2015 Reports activities of former Vietnam War peace activists in the United States to contest the official view of the war being promoted…
Cutler, David: Eric Foner on knowing and teaching history
Cutler, David ‘“You have to know history to actually teach it”‘, The Atlantic, 10 January 2014 Eric Foner is a Pulitzer Prize winner (2011 for The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery) who has written a number of books…
Holbrook, Carolyn: Speech to History Teachers’ Summer School
Carolyn Holbrook ‘Speech to UNSW History Teachers’ Summer School, National Press Club, Canberra, 22 January 2015′, Honest History, 3 February 2015 Thank you. I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak to an audience that includes secondary school historians…
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Peter FitzSimons’ Gallipoli reviewed
‘Over the top with Fitz’, Honest History, 3 February 2015 Michael Piggott reviews Gallipoli by Peter Fitzsimons In opening his April 2013 review of Chris Roberts’ The Landing at Anzac, 1915, Harvey Broadbent said this: The Gallipoli industry moves inexorably…
Anzackery: a personal view
David Reid* ‘Anzackery: a personal view’, Honest History, 3 February 2015 The author came to Honest History’s attention when he wrote on Twitter that Anzackery ‘filled today’s military platoons’. We asked him to write for us at greater length. HH…
Reid, David: Anzackery: a personal view
Reid, David ‘Anzackery: a personal view‘, Honest History, 3 February 2015 A former soldier, whose father served in the RAAF and the peace-time army, reflects on the concept of Anzackery and its implications for future generations. Anzackery is a theme…
Where you stand
I wish I wouldn’t have to live in a world where people who are willing to kill others are called “heroes” and people who don’t want to kill others are called “cowards”. In a way, this little morsel of language convention sums…
Brand Anzac
Is there any Australian brand worth more in the hearts and minds of Australians than “Anzac”? While Aussies might get parochial about Qantas and misty-eyed about Vegemite, such household names cannot compete with a brand so central to the national…
Standing stones
The grave marker of Private WL Rae (killed 8 August 1918, aged 24) in the Villers Bretonneux cemetery reads, ‘Another life lost, hearts broken, for what’. This sentiment on Great War graves is unusually frank but not unique. Australian War Memorial…
Review note: historiography miscellany
‘Review note: historiography miscellany’, Honest History, 21 January 2015 Herodotus Reaching back more than 2400 years to one of the founders of the discipline seems a good place to start. Herodotus, a Greek born in modern day Turkey, penned his…
Stephens, David: ADFA presentation on teaching children about war
David Stephens ‘Top down, bottom up, or bit by bit? Teaching children about war: paper to ADFA Summer School, 21 January 2015‘, Honest History, 21 January 2015 These are notes of a presentation to the UNSW Canberra ADFA Summer School…
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Fisk, Robert: Gallipoli centenary conceals Armenian genocide
Fisk, Robert ‘The Gallipoli centenary is a shameful attempt to hide the Armenian Holocaust‘, The Independent, 19 January 2015 Fisk says ‘Turkey is planning to use the 100th anniversary of the Allied attempt to invade Turkey in 1915 to smother…
West, Lindy: American Sniper
West, Lindy ‘The real American Sniper was a hate-filled killer. Why are simplistic patriots treating him as a hero?‘ The Guardian, 7 January 2015 (updated) Of interest not so much for its remarks about Clint Eastwood’s movie but about what…
Allan, Susan: Governments and history: David Stephens interview
Allan, Susan ‘”Governments want a history that reflects their agenda“‘, World Socialist Web Site, 8 January 2015 Long interview with Honest History secretary, David Stephens, speaking in a personal capacity. The interview covers the politicisation of the Great War centenary…
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Daley, Paul: Anzackery, crowdsourcing and nationalism
Daley, Paul ‘Crowdsourcing is our latest weapon against nationalism and “Anzackery”‘, Guardian Australia, 29 December 2014 Daley quotes the coiner of the term ‘Anzackery’, Geoffrey Serle, writing in 1967, and goes on: Anzackery. What a word … Anzackery. Is there…
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Highlights reel: patriotic poems from Perth
‘Highlights reel: popular poems from Perth’, Honest History, 24 December 2014 Edwin Greenslade Murphy (1866-1939), known as ‘Dryblower’, was a popular poet regularly featured in the Perth Sunday Times during the Great War. He seems to have written hundreds or…
Honest History dialogue: thoughts provoked by an epitaph
‘Honest History dialogue: thoughts provoked by an epitaph’, Honest History, 21 December 2014 Our monthly Honest History e-newsletters include Whizzbangs, miscellaneous thought-provoking paragraphs, sometimes with a connection to events of the day. A Whizzbang in our 2 December newsletter ran…
Hochschild, Adam: No-one remembers the peacemakers
Hochschild, Adam ‘Why no one remembers the peacemakers: celebrating war over and over and peace once‘, TomDispatch, 9 December 2014 and updated Describes the commemoration of the Christmas Truce of 1914 and notes that such commemorations are selective and have…
Stanley, Peter: Who are the liars? Response to Colebatch
Stanley, Peter ‘“Who are the liars?” A response to Hal Colebatch’s Australia’s Secret War‘, Honest History, 17 December 2014 Professor Stanley closely analyses Dr Colebatch’s book, joint winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History 2014. Professor Stanley concludes…
Who are the liars? Response to Colebatch
Peter Stanley ‘”Who are the liars?” A response to Hal Colebatch’s Australia’s Secret War’, Honest History, 17 December 2014 Hal Colebatch asks in Quadrant Online, ‘So, Professor Stanley, Who Are the Liars?’ Er, no one, I answer. Who says that…
Colebatching: a previous joint winner on the PM’s award
Peter Stanley, Honest History President and previous joint winner of the Prime Minister’s Award for History, has written on The Drum about the work of the most recent joint winner, Hal GP Colebatch (Australia’s Secret War). Colebatch’s Australia’s Secret War…
Bongiorno, Frank: Douglas Newton’s Hell-Bent launched
Frank Bongiorno ‘Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War, by Douglas Newton, Scribe, 2014: Canberra Launch, Australian National University, 28 November 2014’, Honest History, 7 December 2014 There is a powerful myth concerning the way Australia behaves in international affairs.…
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Honest History on Australian War Memorial WWI galleries
The Canberra Times (scroll down to ‘How Australians respond to history’) has published a letter from David Stephens for Honest History commenting on remarks by Australian War Memorial Director, Brendan Nelson, about the refurbished World War I galleries at the…
Bates, Sonja: Anzac Day legend
Bates, Sonja ‘The Anzac Day legend: its origins, meaning, power and impact on shaping Australia’s identity (Master’s of Peace and Conflict Studies dissertation, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney, 2013)‘ The Anzac legend lies at the centre…
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Stephens, David: Do spiffing war yarns persist?
Stephens, David ‘Empire sun has set but do spiffing war yarns persist?‘ Honest History, 2 December 2014 This analytical piece compares WH Fitchett’s 1897 Deeds that Won the Empire: Historic Battle Scenes with Audacity: Stories of Heroic Australians in Wartime,…
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Anzac Day media style guide: Honest History Factsheet
All public occasions develop their own style and pitch (and Anzac Day is no exception) but perhaps we had not thought that Anzac Day needed a guide to how it should be presented. Such a guide exists and it is…
Mitchell, Rose & Andrew Janes, ed.: Maps: their untold stories
Mitchell, Rose & Andrew Janes, ed. Maps: their Untold Stories: Map Treasures from the National Archives, Bloomsbury, London, 2014 A map is a snapshot of a place, a city, a nation or even the world at a given point in…
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History is about maps
‘History is about maps’, Honest History, 2 December 2014 Steve Flora reviews Maps: their Untold Stories: Map Treasures from the National Archives, edited by Rose Mitchell and Andrew Janes, and notes some other recent cartographical arrivals It used to be…
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Do spiffing war yarns persist?
David Stephens ‘Empire sun has set but do spiffing war yarns persist?’ Honest History, 2 December 2014 Some talk of Alexander And some of Hercules Of Hector and Lysander And such great names as these. But of all the world’s…
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Clark, Anna: Historical consciousness across generations
Clark, Anna ‘Inheriting the past: historical consciousness across generations‘, Historical Encounters, 1, 1, 2014, pp. 88-102 Despite significant research into the meaning and operation of historical consciousness, there is still much to be understood about its hereditary function. For example,…
Cahill, Rowan: Future of history
Cahill, Rowan ‘The future of history‘, Overland, 29 October 2014 Considers former prime minister John Howard’s book on former prime minister Robert Menzies (The Menzies Era) and moves on to remarks about current politics. Cahill says the book is ‘an…
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Evans, Richard J.: Tory interpretation of history
Evans, Richard J. ‘The wonderfulness of us (the Tory interpretation of history‘, London Review of Books, 17 March 2011 This article was brought to our attention by a reference in Clive Logan’s Supplementary Material to the Report of the Curriculum…
Stanley, Peter: Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary?
Stanley, Peter ‘Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary? Eldershaw Memorial Lecture to Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Hobart, 12 August 2014′, Honest History, 4 November 2014 Professor Stanley, president of Honest History, outlines the history of Honest History, while interweaving elements of…
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Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary?
Peter Stanley ‘Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary? Eldershaw Memorial Lecture to Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Hobart, 12 August 2014’, Honest History, 4 November 2014 Good evening ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, friends, and especially members of Peter Eldershaw’s family. I thank…
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Highlights reel: curriculum review Supplementary Material
‘Highlights reel: curriculum review Supplementary Material’, Honest History, 4 November 2014 This highlights reel provides more detail from the Supplementary Material published with the Review of the Australian Curriculum Final Report (Donnelly-Wiltshire). Our initial take on the history parts of…
Stephens, David: Donnelly-Wiltshire fire a salvo
Stephens, David ‘Donnelly-Wiltshire gunners fire a civilised salvo – but will Minister Pyne follow up?‘ Honest History, 15 October 2014 Analysis of the report of the national curriculum review, paying particularly attention to what it says about the teaching of…
Donnelly-Wiltshire fire a salvo – but will Minister Pyne follow up?
Stephens, David ‘Donnelly-Wiltshire gunners fire a civilised salvo – but will Minister Pyne follow up?’ Honest History, 15 October 2014 and updated If history was as predictable as the history curriculum recommendations of the Donnelly-Wiltshire report we would have no…
Trade-offs
(I) For some time to come, the delicate balance between freedom and security may have to shift … so that there can be more protection. (Prime Minister Abbott, 22 September 2014) (II) Those who would give up essential Liberty, to…
History pumped in
More and more, what we “feel” about collective history seems like something manufactured, and kind of pumped into us, rather than a real emotion. (Michael Stipe, musician and commentator, writing about 9/11 and related issues)
War and sentimentality
Sentimentality distances and fetishizes its object; it is the natural ally of jingoism. So long as we indulge it, we remain incapable of debating the merits of war without being charged with diminishing those who fought it. (Elizabeth Samet, West…
The Playbook
The formula for saving any dictatorship is universal: create an enemy, start a war. The state of war is the regime’s elixir of life. A nation in patriotic ecstasy becomes one with its “national leader”, while dissenters can be declared…
History thickets
History is a dense, wild, bramble-choked thicket of unpredictable events, causes, effects and interconnecting influences from which jobbing historians hack out messy clumps sized to become books, articles or – should some competing vandal have already slashed through an area…
Beaumont, Joan, et al.: ANU Archives annual lectures
Beaumont, Joan, et al. ANU Archives Annual Lectures The ANU Archives and the Friends of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre sponsor an annual lecture in Canberra and podcasts or vodcasts of recent ones are available. They include: 2014 Professor Joan Beaumont,…
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Honest History list: seven resources on teaching history
The Honest History website includes a number of items tagged ‘Teaching history’. Some of them are also tagged ‘Using and abusing history’. Here is a selection: Parkes and Sharp analyse how five secondary history textbooks treat Gallipoli and Simpson and…
Defining moment
The arrival of the first fleet was the defining moment in the history of this continent. Let me repeat that: it was the defining moment in the history of this continent. It was the moment this continent became part of…
Curran, James & Stuart Ward: Unknown Nation
Curran, James & Stuart Ward The Unknown Nation: Australia after Empire, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2010 The book considers Australia’s search for national identity as ‘the receding ties of empire and Britishness posed an unprecedented dilemma as Australians lost…
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Highlights reel: Elizabeth Samet on soldiers dying in vain
‘Highlights reel: Elizabeth Samet on soldiers dying in vain’, Honest History, 23 September 2014 and updated Elizabeth Samet teaches English to first-year cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point. In a recent article in Foreign Policy she…
Anzac centenary sensitivity
Sometimes news items pass you by then return with renewed vigour. Such was the case for Honest History with the Battle of Bita Paka in September 1914, recently commemorated. Bita Paka, in the then German New Guinea, was ‘little more…
Seal, Graham: Inventing Anzac
Seal, Graham Inventing Anzac: The Digger and Modern Mythology, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2004 Anzac and the digger lie at the centre of Australian national identity. Separate but intertwined, their respective traditions have generated and maintained a potent…
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Holbrook, Carolyn: Launch of Anzac unauthorised biography
Carolyn Holbrook ‘Launch of Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography, Carlton, Vic.’, Honest History, 15 September 2014 Carolyn Holbrook delivered this speech at the Melbourne launch of her book at Readings, Carlton, 2 September 2014. Stuart Macintyre also spoke. The book is…
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Macintyre, Stuart: Launch of Holbrook’s Anzac
Macintyre, Stuart ‘Launch of Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography, by Carolyn Holbrook’, Honest History, 15 September 2014 This is an edited version of Professor Macintyre’s speech at Readings, Carlton, 2 September 2014. Frank Bongiorno reviews the book. The author speaks at…
Holbrook, Carolyn: Anzac: the unauthorised biography
Holbrook, Carolyn Anzac: the Unauthorised Biography, NewSouth, Sydney, 2014 Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography … traces how, since 1915, Australia’s memory of the Great War has declined and surged, reflecting the varied and complex history of the Australian nation itself. Most…
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Anzac’s unauthorised biography reviewed
‘The unauthorised biography of a legend’, Honest History, 15 September 2014 Frank Bongiorno reviews Carolyn Holbrook, Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography, NewSouth, Sydney, 2014. See also speeches by Stuart Macintyre and the author at the Melbourne launch of the book. _________________…
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With respect to John Burton
Edwards, Clive T. ‘With respect to John Burton’, Honest History, 10 September 2014 Rob Foot’s article (‘The curious case of Dr John Burton’, Quadrant, November 2013) denigrates the character and contribution of John Burton by reference to incidents that were…
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Edwards, Clive T.: With respect to John Burton
Edwards, Clive T. ‘With respect to John Burton‘, Honest History, 10 September 2014 At a time (2014) when governments are increasingly relying on advice from security services to help them formulate policy, the history of events which have attracted the…
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Clements, Nicholas: Black War in Tasmania
Clements, Nicholas The Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2014 Between 1825 and 1831 close to 200 Britons and 1000 Aborigines died violently in Tasmania’s Black War. It was by far the…
Burton, Pamela: John Burton, undermined by dishonest history
Burton, Pamela ‘John Burton: undermined by dishonest history’, Honest History, 1 September 2014 The illustrated text of an Honest History lecture at Manning Clark House, Canberra, 18 August 2014. The author is a Canberra lawyer and writer and the daughter…
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Taylor, Tony: History teaching under the Coalition
Taylor, Tony ‘Evidence-free beliefs: history in the hands of the Coalition‘, The Conversation, 22 August 2014 The author anticipates the (possibly imminent) release of the Donnelly-Wiltshire report to Minister Pyne on the national curriculum, including the history component. He reports a survey…
Rizzetti, Janine: Victorians and WWI home front
Rizzetti, Janine ‘RHSV Conference: The Other Face of War: Victorians and the Home Front‘, The Resident Judge of Port Phillip [blog], 11 August 2014 Report of conference of Royal Historical Society of Victoria. Speakers included Bart Ziino (Deakin University) who ‘challenged…
Parkes, Robert J. & Heather Sharp: Gallipoli in school textbooks
Parkes, Robert J. & Heather Sharp ‘Nietzchean perspectives on representations of national history in Australian school textbooks: what should we do with Gallipoli?‘ Ensayos: Revista de la Facultad de Educación de Albacete [Spain], 29, 1, 2014, pp. 159-81 Summarises two…
Foley, Gary & Elizabeth Muldoon: Indigenous curriculum
Foley, Gary & Elizabeth Muldoon ‘Pyning for Indigenous rights in the Australian curriculum‘, The Conversation, 15 August 2014 Argues that Indigenous history is under-represented or misrepresented in the current national history curriculum for secondary students. In particular, there is inadequate…
Lest we abuse their memory
‘Lest we abuse their memory’, Honest History, 7 August 2014 Richard Thwaites* reviews Shanti Sumartojo and Ben Wellings, ed., Nation, Memory and Great War Commemoration: Mobilizing the Past in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Peter Lang, Bern, 2014 The powerful…
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The children suffer
David Stephens ‘The children suffer’, Honest History, 11 August 2014 Osbert Sitwell’s The Next War, published in 1918, depicts some plutocrats deciding what would be an appropriate war memorial. The senior plutocrat puts a suggestion which his colleagues eagerly take…
Retracing Kokoda: in defence of historical revisionism
Anthony Cooper ‘Retracing Kokoda: in defence of historical revisionism’, Honest History, 4 August 2014 Somehow, ‘revisionism’ in military history has been turned by some people into a dirty word. Since when did the self-evidently rational process of ‘revising’ or ‘reviewing’…
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On being an independent scholar
Pamela Burton ‘On being an independent scholar’, Honest History, 25 July 2014 When Honest History asked me what it was like being an independent scholar, my first reaction was ‘lonely, sometimes frustrating, and very rewarding’. Traditionally, independent scholars are not…
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General racket
An exotic in the US Army was Major General Smedley Butler, who served in the Marines from 1898 to 1931 and was highly decorated. Having retired, he described his service as being ‘a gangster for capitalism’, wrote a book called…
Children and history
Every State wishes to promote national pride, and is conscious that this cannot be done by unbiased history. The defenseless children are taught by distortions and suppressions and suggestions. The false ideas as to the history of the world which…
Stephens, David: The children suffer
Stephens, David ‘The children suffer‘, Honest History, 11 August 2014 A version (including links) of an article that appears on John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations. An earlier piece on the same subject appeared in Honest History’s first newsletter. There…
Wellings, Ben & Shanti Sumartojo, ed.: Nation, memory and Great War commemoration
Sumartojo, Shanti & Ben Wellings, ed. Nation, Memory and Great War Commemoration: Mobilizing the Past in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Peter Lang, Oxford, 2014 Sixteen contributors discuss aspects of how Great War commemoration has developed in a range of…
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History teaches us
To the English intelligence’, reported the London correspondent of the Argus in 1934, ‘it seems strange that a change of Government should mean the eclipse of one form of history teaching and the rise of another’. The article goes on…
Smith, Tony: Dubious celebrations
Smith, Tony ‘Dubious celebrations of war‘, Pearls and Irritations, 25 July 2014 Makes some important points on television programs about war which seek ‘sentimental responses in admiration of those who enlisted’, the wariness felt by war doubters once war is…
Cooper, Anthony: Kokoda revised
Anthony Cooper ‘Retracing Kokoda: in defence of historical revisionism‘, Honest History, 4 August 2014 Critics of revisionism in history, including military history, assume that there is only one version of the story. But historians should interpret evidence and new evidence…
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Highlights reel: Margaret MacMillan on history wars
‘Highlights reel: Margaret Macmillan on history wars’, Honest History, 28 July 2014 As the Donnelly-Wiltshire report on the national curriculum is about to be handed to the Australian Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, it is instructive to look at a…
Burton, Pamela: Independent scholars
Burton, Pamela ‘On being an independent scholar‘, Honest History, 25 July 2014 The author, a former Canberra lawyer and now author of two books (From Moree to Mabo: The Mary Gaudron Story, The Waterlow Killings: A Portrait of a Family…
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Highlights reel: Margaret Macmillan on history
‘Highlights reel: Margaret Macmillan on history’, Honest History, 20 July 2014 Canadian-born, now Oxford-based historian, Margaret Macmillan, has made a distinguished contribution to the literature of the Great War with her book, The War That Ended Peace: The Road to…
Arango, Tim: Gallipoli and national identities
Arango, Tim ‘At Gallipoli, a campaign that laid ground for national identities‘, New York Times, 26 June 2014 An American views the Gallipoli legacy from both Turkish and Australian perspectives. He interviews Rupert Murdoch on the role of his father,…
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Taylor, Tony: Tony Abbott’s history
Taylor, Tony ‘Tony Abbott’s history‘, The Conversation, 15 July 2014 Relates recent comments by the prime minister to his formative years and a particular understanding of history. The author argues that ‘the ideological basis of Abbott’s grasp of history will…
Stephens, David & Steve Flora: Simpson Prize
Stephens, David & Steve Flora ‘The Simpson Prize: history or civics?’ Honest History, 8 July 2014 and updated There is a link below to a pdf of the article. In summary, the article analyses a number of aspects of the…
Bongiorno, Frank: Labour and Anzac
Bongiorno, Frank ‘Labour and Anzac: historical reflections: Honest History lecture, Manning Clark House, Canberra, 15 June 2014’, Honest History, 8 July 2014 Associate Professor Bongiorno spoke to help launch his co-edited book (Labour and the Great War) on the same…
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McQueen, Humphrey: Anzac: a class struggle
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Anzac: a class struggle’, Honest History, 3 July 2014 ‘History wars’ are about how to control the future. They are not disputes over the past. Stories about the past are pressed into service to buttress the needs of…
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Moses, John A. & Davis, George F.: Anzac Day origins
Moses, John A. & George F. Davis Anzac Day Origins: Canon DJ Garland and Trans-Tasman Commemoration, Barton Books, Barton, ACT, 2013 Examines the origins of Anzac Day via a study of Garland, who ‘became known as the “architect” of ANZAC…
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Primary school children and honest history
Aint Google amazing? In the week where HH had an interesting exchange with the education people at the Australian War Memorial on teaching children about war, Google turned up an article on a number of US blogs with the fascinating…
Review note: centenary war and peace stories for children
‘Review note: centenary war and peace stories for children’, Honest History, 24 June 2014 updated He had killed a man not six hours before. He had killed six men during the past month – or was it a year? –…
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Bottoms, Timothy: Myall Creek and beyond
Bottoms, Timothy ‘Myall Creek Memorial Talk, Sunday 8 June 2014’, Honest History, 23 June 2014, updated This item is relevant to the history of relations between Indigenous and White Australians but also to the way we have suppressed and distorted…
The honesty of history
Francesca Beddie in The Australian recalls the serve Honest History received from Nick Cater of the same publication. Cater described our website, us and our President, Peter Stanley, as ‘condescending’ for targeting ‘history that is tendentious, unjustified, exaggerated, distorted, partial…
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Curriculum review interim report released
The preliminary report of the Donnelly-Wiltshire review of the national curriculum has been released, having been with the Minister since the end of March. (Earlier background.) The final report will be with the Minister (though not necessarily released) at the…
Sheedy, Chris & Steve Offner: Anzac myth busting
Sheedy, Chris & Steve Offner ‘Cover story – busting the Anzac myth‘, Uniken (University of New South Wales), 12 June 2014 Reports remarks at a conference from Jeffrey Grey, Craig Stockings and Peter Stanley, all of UNSW/ADFA on the blowing…
Bowers, Mike: Battlefields photographs
Bowers, Mike Battlefields of France and Palestine: a portfolio of photographs, 2009 and 2011 Maltzkorn Farm crucifix near Trones Wood, The Somme, France. Maltzkorn Farm was destroyed by the fierce battles which took place here 1 July-5 August 1916…
Daley, Paul & Mike Bowers: Battlefields
Daley, Paul (with illustrations by Mike Bowers) ‘Battlefields’, Honest History, 12 June 2014 Battlefields of France and Palestine, 2009 and 2011: a portfolio of photographs by Mike Bowers Paul Daley, columnist for the Guardian Australia, has written a number of…
Stanley, Peter: Patriotic teachers?
Stanley, Peter Do teachers have ‘patriotic’ obligations? Address to ACT-NSW History Teachers’ Associations conference, University of Canberra, 9 May 2014 Good morning and thank you for your kind invitation to speak to you today; and in greeting you I acknowledge…
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Frenette, Yves: Conscripting Canada’s past
Frenette, Yves ‘Conscripting Canada’s past: the Harper Government and the politics of memory’, Canadian Journal of History, 49, Spring-Summer, 2014, pp. 49-65 The author argues that the conservative Canadian government is reconstructing Canada’s past to serve a broader project of…
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Blinkered commemoration at the Australian War Memorial
David Stephens writes in Fairfax media 10 June 2o14 about the parochial approach taken by the Australian War Memorial to commemoration, despite the possibilities offered by its legislation for a broader perspective. The hard copy in the Canberra Times 11…
Wadham, Ben: Camouflage and national identity
Wadham, Ben ‘Camouflage and national identity’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 Tropes of sacrifice, duty and honour that mark the birth of a nation are like camouflage that seeks to hide the truth from the viewer. But in this case,…
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Stanley, Peter: Anzac and our first war
Stanley, Peter ‘On Anzac Day, we remember the Great War but forget our first war‘, The Conversation, 25 April 2014 On Anzac Day, Australia remembers its war dead, with one tragic exception. Australia is apparently disinclined to acknowledge the fact or…
Stephens, David: ANZAC Day Anzackery
Stephens, David ‘ANZAC Day Anzackery‘, Independent Australia, 25 April 2014 Anzackery today is a form of patriotic mysticism trotted out by prime ministers and old military buffers. But why is it so popular? Well, it’s partly because it simplifies complex…
Jacobs, Genevieve: Anzac Day at Wallendbeen
Genevieve Jacobs ‘Anzac Day at Wallendbeen’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 Genevieve Jacobs gave the 2014 Anzac Day address at Wallendbeen, NSW (population 316). She is a presenter with ABC Local Radio, Canberra. 310 Jacobs Wallendbeen The speech questions high…
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Diamadis, Panayiotis: Gallipoli before and beyond Anzac
Diamadis, Panayiotis ‘Gallipoli before and beyond Anzac’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 311 Gallipoli Before and Beyond Anzac Parts I-II This article originally appeared in To Vema, September-October 2013. To Vema is Australia’s largest circulation bilingual Hellenic-English newspaper. The article…
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Gaita, Raimond: Why study humanities?
Gaita, Raimond ‘Why study humanities?‘ The Conversation, 21 March 2014 Revised version of a talk to students in which Gaita talks about Indigenous Australians, Socrates, philosophy, the importance of becoming acquainted with great thinkers from the past, and the significance…
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Rose, James: Who profits from the Anzac brand?
Rose, James ‘Who profits from the Anzac brand?‘ The Saturday Paper, 19 April 2014 The Anzac legend is being further elevated as the nation gathers itself for the start of a year-long commemoration to mark 100 years since the doomed…
Pyne, Christopher: Crucible of nationhood
Pyne, Christopher ‘Crucible of nationhood‘, Pyne Online (originally published Australian Financial Review, 24-27 April 2014) The author is the Coalition’s Minister for Education. We should … remember how through this forge of war our infant nation reached out and grasped…
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Burnside, Sarah: Alternatives to Anzac Day
Burnside, Sarah ‘What would alternatives to Anzac day look like?‘ Guardian Australia, 23 April 2014 Discusses an ‘alternative national story’ derived from social democratic reforms prior to the Great War, which were interrupted by the destruction and disruption of the…
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Stanley, Peter: On history
[Stanley, Peter] ‘Peter Stanley on history‘, NSW Writers’ Centre (2014) Transcript of brief interview in which Stanley answers questions: what inspired you to become an historian? what are the most challenging aspects of writing history? how do you choose your…
Bongiorno, Frank: CS Ryan Gallipoli photographs
Bongiorno, Frank ‘Gallipoli: an exhibition of photographs by Charles Snodgrass Ryan: Manning Clark House, launch speech, 4 p.m., 6 April 2014’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 Associate Professor Bongiorno addresses aspects of the commemoration of World War I, including the…
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Simpson, Catherine: Turkey, Gallipoli, film, nationalism
Simpson, Catherine ‘From ruthless foe to national friend: Turkey, Gallipoli and Australian nationalism‘, Media International Australia, 137, 1, November 2010, pp. 58-66 As the centenary of the Gallipoli landings draws closer, we will no doubt be inundated with more media…
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Sluga, Glenda: Historians’ war
Sluga, Glenda ‘Historians’ war’, Honest History, 30 March 2014 256 Sluga Historians War Christopher Clark, expatriate Australian historian based at Cambridge, has aroused great interest in Europe with his new book, The Sleepwalkers, tracing how the nations of Europe moved…
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Stephens, David: Memorial connects children with 62 000 dead
Stephens, David ‘Australian War Memorial offers opportunity for primary school children to connect with 62 000 Great War dead’, Honest History, 31 March 2014 The article describes the Australian War Memorial’s Roll of Honour Soundscape project in which primary school…
Beaumont, Joan, et al: Asia today – 1914 redux?
Beaumont, Joan, Evelyn Goh, Michael Wesley, Hugh White, ‘Asia today – 1914 redux?’ ANU School of International Political and Strategic Studies seminar, Canberra, 18 March 2014 Notes of the seminar were prepared by David Stephens. Read more… 258 Asia Today…
Hynd, Doug: Moral judgements, asylum seekers, historians
Hynd, Doug ‘Moral judgments, asylum seekers and why historians can be helpful in public policy-making’, Honest History, 12 March 2014 Taking a historical perspective can give depth and clarity to controversial policy issues. The current debate about who is morally…
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Chynoweth, Adele: Museum sector marginalising
Chynoweth, Adele ‘Forgotten or ignored Australians? The Australian museum sector’s marginalisation of Inside – Life in Children’s Homes and Institutions‘, International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, 6, 2, pp.171-182 In 2009, the Australian Government announced as part of the National Apology to…
Jauncey meets Mephistopheles (18 February 2014)
In November 2013 I presented a keynote address to the biennial conference convened by the energetic Narratives of War Research Group of the University of South Australia. In it I compared Australia’s memory of war with that of various countries…
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Jauncey goes to Gettysburg (6 February 2014)
I have been interested in the American Civil War from the age of eleven. Over the years the idea grew that it would be worth attending in July 2013 the 150th anniversary of the war’s greatest battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.…
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APO multiple authors: Australian Policy Online
APO multiple authors Australian Policy Online Policy Online is a research database and alert service providing free access to full text research reports and papers, statistics and other resources essential for public policy development and implementation in Australia and New…
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Stephens, David: Should we softpedal on Gallipoli?
David Stephens ‘Should we softpedal on Gallipoli?’ Honest History, 4 February 2014 Andrew Nikolic is the Liberal member for Bass, Tasmania, and a former Brigadier. He commented on his website on remarks by our President, Professor Peter Stanley, about the…
Jauncey chews on chota hazri in Kolkata (30 January)
Peter Stanley takes over the Jauncey pen from David Stephens. I’m in Kolkata to deliver the keynote address at a conference, ‘Re-newing the military history of colonial India’, held at Jadavpur University, one of the most prestigious educational institutions in…
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Jauncey on the days (and years) of our lives (20 January 2014)
Happy New Year; 2014. Has anyone else noticed the significance of this year? Yes, of course, it is the centenary of the start of World War I and we won’t be allowed to forget that as the commemorative bandwagon rolls…
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Stephens, David: Minister Pyne and the curriculum – again
David Stephens ‘Minister Pyne and the curriculum – again’, Honest History, January 2014 (and updated) The preliminary report of the Donnelly-Wiltshire review was released in June 2014. Donnelly interviewed. Gary Foley and Elizabeth Muldoon question the treatment of Indigenous history…
Pyne and the uncontested national narrative
David Stephens writes in the Canberra Times (23 December 2013) on ‘Learning lessons of History’, noting several views on the risks of a national history curriculum that would promote a simplistic or uncontested national narrative. 23 December 2013
Brissenden, Michael: Afghanistan media coverage
Michael Brissenden ‘Afghanistan: the war we hardly knew‘, ABC The Drum, 14 November 2013 Discusses Department of Defence attitudes to media coverage of the war in Afghanistan. Attracted 145 comments. The culture of secrecy that has built up over recent…
Williams, John F: Anzacs, media, Great War
Williams, John F Anzacs, the Media and the Great War, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1999 The author examines the Anzac legend as a media-based phenomenon by looking at how readers of Australian, British and French newspapers were…
Francis, Adrienne: All commemoration is political
Francis, Adrienne ‘”All commemoration is political”: historians lead charge against Gallipoli “myth”‘, ABC News, 11 November 2013 Interviews Professor Joan Beaumont about commemoration fatigue and the way commemoration is used for political purposes. The emphasis on Gallipoli and the Anzac…
Keating, Paul: Remembrance Day 2013
Keating, Paul ‘Paul Keating’s address at the Australian War Memorial 2013: we are too wise to be cannon fodder again‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 November 2013 Speech (official text here) marking 2oth anniversary of Keating’s speech as Prime Minister at…
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Hynd, Doug: Anzac Day reflections
Hynd, Doug ‘Reflections on an Anzac Day service’, Honest History, 4 December 2013 The author probes the theology of an Anzac Day Dawn Service and asks how compatible are the claims embodied in the liturgy of the Dawn Service and…
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Daley, Paul: Heart of Honest History
Paul Daley ‘The Heart of Honest History’ (Honest History Launch, 7 November 2013, Manning Clark House, Canberra), Honest History, 8 November 2013 Thanks Peter [Stanley]. Thanks Sebastian [Clark]. I, too acknowledge the traditional owners of this land [Canberra]. And thanks…
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Daley, Paul: Sparing no expense on Anzackery
Daley, Paul ‘Australia spares no expense as the Anzac legend nears its century‘, The Guardian Australia, 15 October 2013 Notes the mystical place of Gallipoli in Australian history and how this is reflected in ever-increasing expenditure on the Anzac centenary.…
Honest History: Young people and the Anzac tradition today
Honest History ‘Young people and the Anzac tradition today’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 Young Australians have differing views on Anzac and related matters. Two university students and an entrant in a secondary schools essay competition are quoted.…
Watters, Chris: Anzac, Vimy Ridge, Monash and the education of children
Watters, Chris ‘Anzac, Vimy Ridge, Monash and the education of children’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 5, September 2013 Towards the end of the 20th century there was an increase in claims that battles fought in World War I defined national…
Stanley, Peter: Gallipoli Club address
Stanley, Peter ‘Gallipoli – 98 years on’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 4, August 2013 Professor Stanley answers these questions: How important is Gallipoli to Australians? Is the Gallipoli story just a national myth? Is Gallipoli’s importance based on tenuous history?…
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Stephens, David: Tangled up in red, white and blue
Stephens, David ‘Tangled up in red, white and blue’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 5, September 2013 We choose our own history, which bits of the past we wish to burnish and which we prefer to leave alone.We are doing war…
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Honest History: The national history curriculum and the coalition
Honest History ‘The national history curriculum and the coalition: Honest History Factsheet’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 5, September 2013 When you change the government, do you change the curriculum as well? Should you? This article brings together some Coalition remarks…
Hurst, Daniel: Say after the minister
Hurst, Daniel ‘Say after the minister: old is new again‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 September 2013 Minister Pyne’s first extensive interview, touching on the history curriculum and other aspects. Comments from Honest History spokesperson.
Carr, EH: What is history?
Carr, EH What is History? Penguin, Camberwell, Vic., 2008; first published Macmillan, London, 1961; 2nd edition 1987 A slim classic. Some of the key passages relate to fish and they are directly relevant to the recurring battles over the nature…
Davison, Graeme: Use and abuse
Davison, Graeme The Use and Abuse of Australian History, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2000 Wide-ranging collection on many aspects of public, local and cultural history. The first chapter, ‘Introduction: Australian history on the eve of the millennium’, is…
Brandstrom, Annika, Fredrik Bynander & Paul ‘t Hart: Looking back
Brandstrom, Annika, Fredrik Bynander & Paul t’ Hart ‘Governing by looking back: historical analogies and crisis management‘, [originally published] Public Administration, 82, 1, 2004, pp. 191-210 A common misunderstanding about crises – understood here as epochs of profound uncertainty and…
Neumann, Klaus & Gwenda Tavan, ed.: Does history matter?
Neumann, Klaus & Gwenda Tavan, ed. Does History Matter? Making and Debating Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Policy in Australia and New Zealand, ANU E-Press & Australian and New Zealand School of Government, Canberra, 2009; free download format available Multiple authors…
About Using and abusing history
Click here for all items related to: Using and abusing history Passover, Mathilde Hahn Meyer, Germany, late 19th or early 20th century, painting on canvas (source: Flickr Commons/Center for Jewish History, New York City 2004.226; repository: Yeshiva University Museum, New…
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Taylor, Tony: History in politics
Taylor, Tony ‘History in politics: neoconservative progressivism, knowledgeable ignorance and the origins of the next history war‘, History Australia, 10, 2, August 2013, pp. 227-40 This article outlines the relationship between neoconservative politics in Australia and history education. It categorises…
Taylor, Tony: Curriculum history and politics
Taylor, Tony ‘Curriculum: a matter of history … and politics‘, Monash University: News and Events, 5 October 2012 Analyses a recent speech by former prime minister Howard, referring also to the response to it from the curriculum authority. (The author…
APH multiple authors: Australian Politics and History
APH multiple authors Australian Politics and History An enterprise based at Deakin University, which partners with the Australian National University, the University of New England, the History Council of New South Wales and the Australian Historical Association. The site includes…
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Stephens, Tony: View beyond the battlefield
Stephens, Tony ‘The view beyond the battlefield‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 August 2005 Arguing that ‘Australia’s national identity must be defined by more than its wartime history’ the author asks: ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if Australians looking to recommend the…
Cahill, Rowan: Alec Campbell
Cahill, Rowan ‘Alec Campbell, 1899-2002‘, The Hummer (Australian Society for the Study of Labour History), 3, 8, Winter 2002 Gives an honest perspective on Campbell, ‘the last Anzac’, whose military career lasted less than a year (including just six weeks…
Jauncey opens up (24 October 2013)
When the Honest History enterprise was just getting under way one supporter pointed out how great it would be to have in one place – a repository, indeed – a resource of material that put the Anzac myth under the…
Manne, Robert: Sorry
Manne, Robert ‘Sorry business: the road to the apology‘, The Monthly, March 2008 Examines the history leading to the Rudd Government’s apology to the Stolen Generation in 2008, elements of the history of White Australia’s dealings with Indigenous Australians and…
McKenna, Mark: Blackfellas’ point
McKenna, Mark Looking for Blackfellas’ Point: An Australian History of Place, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2002 ‘A history for every Australian who is interested in the story of settler-Australia’s relations with Indigenous people—what happened between us, how…
Macintyre, Stuart with Anna Clark: The History Wars
Stuart Macintyre with Anna Clark The History Wars, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2003; later editions including e-book Historical survey of a number of controversies affecting Australian historians and their craft. The book itself provoked further controversy, particularly about the political…
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Macintyre, Stuart, ed.: Historian’s conscience
Macintyre, Stuart, ed. The Historian’s Conscience: Australian Historians on the Ethics of History, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2004 The editor posed six questions to the contributors. Summarised: how do historians choose their histories? what balance do they strike between…
Clark, Anna: Teaching the nation
Clark, Anna Teaching the Nation: Politics and Pedagogy in Australian History, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2006 Starts from Prime Minister’s Howard’s well-known remark in 2000 at Gallipoli that ‘history was not being taught as it should be in Australia’s…
Christopher Pyne’s history curriculum
On 28 September 2013, Fairfax media online and in hardcopy newspapers carried extensive coverage by reporter Daniel Hurst of the stated intention of new Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, to take a stronger role in correcting ‘leftist’ agenda bias in school…
Davison, Graeme: Habit of commemoration
Graeme Davison ‘The habit of commemoration and the revival of Anzac Day’, Australian Cultural History, 22, 2003, pp. 73-82 A recent survey on ‘Australians and the Past’ questioned the assumption that ‘public celebrations are a clue to private sentiments’. (p.…
Clark, Anna: Teaching national narratives
Clark, Anna ‘Teaching national narratives and values in Australian schools‘, originally published, Agora (History Teachers Association of Victoria), 43, 1, 2008, pp. 4-9 Discusses the Howard Government’s education agenda, attitudes to it and the varying attitudes of students to the…
Hannaford, John & Janice Newton: Sacrifice
Hannaford, John & Janice Newton ‘Sacrifice, grief and the sacred at the contemporary “secular” pilgrimage to Gallipoli‘, Borderlands, 7, 1, 2008 Looks at Gallipoli travel from a religious perspective. The authors were from the Australian College of Ministries and the…
McKay, Jim: Battlefield tourism
McKay, Jim ‘A critique of the militarisation of Australian history and culture thesis: the case of Anzac battlefield tourism‘, Portal, 10, 1, January 2013 Criticises the authors of What’s Wrong with Anzac? for their ‘top-down’ approach and assumptions that the…
Whimpress, Bernard: Creeping Anzacism
Bernard Whimpress* ‘Creeping Anzacism: a paper delivered to the 15th State History Conference, Adelaide, 28 May 2006‘ Bernard Whimpress is an Adelaide-based historian best known as a sports writer. However, he has also written books and articles on city heritage,…
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Nietzsche, Friedrich: History for life
Nietzsche, Friedrich On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, translated Ian Johnston, Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo, BC, Canada, revised edition, 2010; first published 1874 Contains many insights into this subject, among them his warning that ‘there are times…
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Baker, Mark: Ride
Baker, Mark ‘Taken for a ride?‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 7 March 2013 Report on the federal government inquiry into whether John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the Man with the Donkey, should posthumously receive a Victoria Cross. The article describes how journalists, false…
Rundle, Guy: Anzac 2013
Rundle, Guy ‘The one day of pure form‘, Overland, 211, Winter 2013, pp. 61-64 The author argues that Anzac Day has previously been noted for ‘trumpeting of a white imperialism, for its militarism, for its idolisation of masculinity. Some of…
Stockings, Craig, ed.: Zombie myths
Stockings, Craig, ed. Zombie Myths of Australian Military History: The Ten Myths that Will Not Die, NewSouth, Sydney, 2010 Over the years many books on Australian military history have given rise to a host of …‘zombie’ myths – myths that…
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Stockings, Craig, ed.: Dirty dozen
Stockings, Craig, ed. Anzac’s Dirty Dozen: 12 Myths of Australian Military History, NewSouth, Sydney, 2012 Myth busting by military historians and other authors on a wide range of topics, including denials that our military history begins at Gallipoli, that our…
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Rundle, Guy: Anzac Day 2012
Rundle, Guy ‘Anzac Day and why we need to question “myths” of war‘, Crikey, 24 April 2012 Anzac-based nationalism from the Labor Government is related to the commitment to the Afghanistan war and specifically to Labor’s need to show its…
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McKernan, Michael: Anzac Day
McKernan, Michael ‘True meaning of Anzac Day‘, Canberra Times, 7 May 2013 The author writes of a relative, disabled in the Vietnam War. His article warns about overglamourising Anzac Day, risking the loss of its real meaning, and confusing the…
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MacInnes, Scott: Anzac values
MacInnes, Scott ‘Aussie, Christian or universal values?‘ The Drum (ABC), 25 April 2011 Those values Australians celebrate on Anzac Day – courage, bravery, solidarity and compassion for the fallen – are exactly the same values the Turkish, Japanese, Vietnamese, Iraqi…
Carlton, Mike: Anzac abyss
Carlton, Mike ‘Staring at the abyss, thank God for Alan‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 April 2013 The second part of the article is a meditation on Anzac Day, which the author feels has virtually become ‘Anzac Week’. ‘The remembrance of…
Stephens, David: Australian War Memorial
Stephens, David ‘Memories and messages at the Australian War Memorial‘, The Drum (ABC), 29 April 2011 Thoughts provoked by a visit to the Australian War Memorial on Anzac Day, stressing particularly the effects of the normalisation of militarism. Notes also…
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Stanley, Peter: Bad Characters
Peter Stanley Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny and Murder and the Australian Imperial Force, Murdoch/Pier 9, Sydney 2010 Australia’s long-standing love affair with the Diggers has blinded us to the dark side of the Anzac legend. Bad Characters is a…
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Lake, Marilyn et al Wheeler Centre debate: April 2013
Lake, Marilyn, Graham Wilson, Jeff Sparrow, Brendan Nelson, John Martinkus, Nicholas Jans ‘Intelligence Squared Debate: Anzac Day is More Puff Than Substance, 30 April 2013‘, The Wheeler Centre (video, audio, no transcript) The plucky bravery of the Anzacs is one…
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Keating, PJ: After Words: The Post-Prime Ministerial Speeches
PJ Keating After Words: The Post-Prime Ministerial Speeches, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2011 Notable for the former Prime Minister’s distinction, following George Orwell, between nationalism and patriotism. He prefers the latter, which is ‘belief in a particular place and its…
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Gartrell, Adam: Rudd, Keating ‘at war’ over Gallipoli
Adam Gartrell ‘Rudd, Keating “at war” over Gallipoli‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 31 October 2008 The former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, had said it was ‘utter and complete nonsense’ that Australia was redeemed or born again at Gallipoli in 1915, that…
Ramsey, Alan: What you get for having a shot at Keating
Alan Ramsey ‘What you get for having a shot at Keating‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 November 2008 Text of the then former Prime Minister’s response to the remark of the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, that Keating was wrong to…
Londey, Peter: Managed memories
Peter Londey ‘Managed memories‘, H-net Book Review (27 May 2005); originally published H-war, January 2005 The book reviewed is Liz Reed, Bigger than Gallipoli: War, History and Memory in Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 2004. The reviewer worked…
Masters, Chris, et al: The great history war
Chris Masters ‘The great history war‘, ABC Four Corners, 10 November 2008 (transcript) Presenter Chris Masters talks to academics, war historians, military tourists and descendants of soldiers. The scenes are Gallipoli and the Western Front. Among the remarks: PROF. JOAN…
McKenna, Mark: Patriot act
Mark McKenna ‘Patriot act’, Australian, 6 June 2007 (also in the Australian Literary Review) Long (5000 words) article anticipating the author’s chapter in What’s Wrong with Anzac? Contains seminal critique of the Anzac myth as a political tool, wielded by…
Lake, Marilyn: We must fight free of Anzac
Marilyn Lake ‘We must fight free of Anzac, lest we forget our other stories‘, Age, 24 April 2009 Rehearses many of the arguments put in What’s Wrong with Anzac? Looks at the troubles of soldier settlers after World War I,…
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Rose, James: Here’s looking at us #1: the Australian War Memorial
James Rose ‘Here’s looking at us #1 – the Australian War Memorial‘, Crikey, 13 August 2013 Blogger reviews the Memorial and asks whether we should see the dead commemorated there ‘as the War Memorial encourages us, as young men and women…
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Piggott, Michael: The Battle for Australia: Henry Reynolds’s ‘Forgotten War’
Michael Piggott* ‘The Battle for Australia: Henry Reynolds’s “Forgotten War”‘, Honest History Newsletter No. 5, September 2013 There is so much about Henry Reynolds’s latest book (Forgotten War, NewSouth Publishing, 2013) to admire, to think about and to endorse. What…
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Reynolds, Henry: Forgotten War
Henry Reynolds Forgotten War, New South, Sydney, 2013 The book (winner of the Victorian Premier’s award for non-fiction) chronicles in relentless detail the frontier war between settlers and Indigenous Australians, which saw upwards of 30 000 Aborigines and at least…
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Honest History: The national history curriculum and the Coalition
The national history curriculum and the coalition: Honest History Factsheet Prime Minister Paul Keating said that when you change the government, you change the country. Do you change the curriculum as well? This article brings together some sources that may…
Stephens, Alan: Acts of remembrance or expressions of nationalism?
Alan Stephens ‘Acts of remembrance or expressions of nationalism?‘ The Drum (ABC), 25 April 2013 Article (attracting 185 comments by readers) by an historian of the RAAF, arguing that [a]t the start, Australia needed Anzac Day. We were a small,…
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Brissenden, Michael: Should Anzac Day inspire more than just fervour?
Michael Brissenden ‘Should Anzac Day inspire more than just fervour?’ ABC The Drum, 25 April 2013 Includes 100 comments showing a wide spectrum of views. Quotes Clare Wright, historian, that ‘Anzac Day has grown in appeal in inverse proportion to…
Stanley, Peter: Why does Gallipoli mean so much? (25 April 2008)
Peter Stanley ‘Why does Gallipoli mean so much?‘ ABC News, 25 April 2008 (written 2006) Historian Peter Stanley tries to answer this question. ‘Nations’, he says, ‘create the history they need’. After Anzac was neglected for many years, an assertive…
Bendle, Mervyn F.: Gallipoli: second front in the History Wars
Mervyn F. Bendle ‘Gallipoli: second front in the History Wars‘, Quadrant Online, LIII, 6, June 2009 Lengthy article with many citations taking to task historians like Joan Beaumont, Marilyn Lake, Mark McKenna, Robin Prior and Peter Stanley and commentators such…
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Brissenden, Michael, et al: Importance of Anzac Day: 25 April 2013
Michael Brissenden, et al ‘Importance of Anzac Day‘, ABC Lateline, 25 April 2013 (video, transcript) Participants are Michael Brissenden (ABC), Bob Hawke (former Prime Minister), Brendan Nelson (Director, Australian War Memorial), Clare Wright (author). Hawke and Nelson support the role…
McKenna, Mark: Lest we inflate
Mark McKenna ‘Lest we inflate: Why do Australians lust for heroic war stories?‘ The Monthly, December 2012 The author notes the proliferation of military books in the last decade, including some 150 with ‘Anzac’ or ‘Gallipoli’ in the title, and…
Lester, Tim & Marilyn Lake: What’s wrong with Anzac?
Tim Lester & Marilyn Lake ‘What’s wrong with Anzac?‘ The Age: Breaking Politics, 25 April 2013 (video) Tim Lester interviews Professor Marilyn Lake about aspects of commemoration. Professor Lake suggests the treatment of Anzac has been characterised by commemoration without…
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Green, Jonathan, Paul Daley & Clare Wright: Imagine Australia without Anzacs
Jonathan Green, Paul Daley & Clare Wright ‘Imagine Australia without Anzacs‘, ABC Sunday Extra, 21 April 2013 (audio, no transcript) Paul Daley and Clare Wright talk with Jonathan Green and try to imagine Australia without the Anzac legend. Who would…
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Hillman, Roger: A transnational Gallipoli?
Roger Hillman ‘A transnational Gallipoli?‘ Australian Humanities Review, 51, November 2011, pp. 25-42 (free download) ‘Changing perceptions of Gallipoli’, the author argues, ‘are an instructive case study in a world of increasingly transnational perspectives’. (p. 25) Considers the views of…
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Hawkins, Jo: Lest we forget what?
Jo Hawkins ‘Lest we forget what?‘ historypunk, 26 August 2013 (blog) Discussion of aspects of Anzac commemoration, including two videos, one addressing the appropriateness of the AFL Anzac Day Match as a form of commemoration.
Hawkins, Jo: Why is military history so popular?
Jo Hawkins ‘Why is military history so popular?‘ historypunk, 5 March 2013 (blog) ‘Military history is the best-selling genre of historical writing in Australia, yet remains unpopular with historians, many of whom feel uncomfortable with the kinds of narratives disseminated…
Hede, Anne-Marie & Ruth Rentschler, ed.: Reflections on Anzac Day
Anne-Marie Hede & Ruth Rentschler, ed. Reflections on ANZAC Day: From One Millennium to the Next, Heidelberg Press, Heidelberg, Vic., 2010 Articles from a conference in 2006 under the headings, ‘Myth’, ‘Custodians’, ‘Heritage and pilgrimage’ and ‘New forms of engagement’.…
McKenna, Mark & Stuart Ward: ‘It was really moving, mate’
Mark McKenna & Stuart Ward ‘“It was really moving, mate”: The Gallipoli pilgrimage and sentimental nationalism in Australia‘, Australian Historical Studies, 38, 129, 2007, pp. 141-51 Commences with a picture of Australian tourists in Turkey and their reaction to visiting…
Wellings, Ben: The politics of Great War commemoration (video)
Ben Wellings ‘The politics of Great War commemoration‘ (18 May 2012), Australian National University video (no transcript) Wellings (formerly ANU, now Monash University) chairs a discussion with three European academics on issues of comparative commemoration, including the politics attending commemoration…
Jones, Tony, et al: Anzac Day special: Anzac Day 2010
Tony Jones, et al ‘Anzac Day special‘, ABC Q & A, 26 April 2010 (video, transcript, questions, summary, biodata of panellists) Panellists were Germaine Greer, General Peter Cosgrove, Peter FitzSimons, Brigadier Alison Creagh and Professor Henry Reynolds, with Tony Jones.…
Honest History: Freedom’s call resonates still
Honest History ‘Freedom’s call resonates still’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 One phenomenon Honest History hopes to explore is how geopolitical (or just political) reasons for going to war are transformed, apotheosised into more abstract, sublime justifications, especially…
Honest History: Using and abusing history
Honest History ‘Using and abusing history’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 The use and misuse or abuse of history will be a strong theme of Honest History. We condemn the abuse of history but we vigorously support its…
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Waterford, Jack: Gallipoli souvenirs , exploits or exploitation
‘But wait there’s more’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 Jack Waterford has written trenchantly in the Canberra Times about the growth in the Gallipoli souvenir industry, everything from shavings of the Lone Pine to ‘the Legend of Gallipoli…
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Honest History: Darwin bombing keeps on giving
Honest History ‘Darwin bombing keeps on giving’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 The newish Director of the Australian War Memorial, Brendan Nelson, reckons that 1942 is one of the two most significant dates in Australian history. He may…
Watters, Chris: Anzac, Vimy Ridge, Monash and the education of children
Chris Watters* ‘Anzac, Vimy Ridge, Monash and the education of children’, Honest History E-newsletter No. 5, September 2013 Towards the end of the 20th century there was an increase in claims that battles fought in World War I defined national…
Neustadt, Richard E & Ernest R May: Thinking in Time
Richard E. Neustadt & Ernest R May Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, The Free Press, New York & London, 1988; first published 1986 Classic book which should have seen more editions. Described by one writer…
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Stephens, David: Tangled up in red, white and blue
David Stephens* ‘Tangled up in red, white and blue’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 5, September 2013 War remembrance and days of commemoration bring out extremes of rhetoric, little gems of hyperbole that even the speaker might reconsider had they given…
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Broadbent, Harvey: A simple epic: Gallipoli and the Australian media
Harvey Broadbent ‘A simple epic’: Gallipoli and the Australian media (The 2009 Lone Pine Anniversary Lecture) Media includes newspapers, radio and television, internet, cinema, theatre and books. The article covers the whole period 1915-2009. ‘Media … was involved from the…
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McGirr, Michael: Bypass
Michael McGirr Bypass: The Story of a Road, Picador, Sydney, 2004 Ostensibly, the story of a cycle trip down the Hume Highway by a former Jesuit. ‘In some ways’, McGirr says, ‘the Hume Highway is one long war memorial’ (p.…
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Underwood, Peter: Anzac Day speeches
[Peter Underwood] Anzac Day speech by the Honourable Peter Underwood AC, Governor of Tasmania, The Cenotaph, Hobart, Thursday, 25th April 2013 ‘Australia needs to drop the sentimental myths that ANZAC Day has attracted.’ We should tell our children what war…
Rudd, Kevin: Keneally launch
Kevin Rudd ‘Launch of first volume of Tom Keneally’s Australians: Origins to Eureka, National Library, Canberra, 27 August 2009′ ‘[It was time] [t]o recognise there are competing strands in any nation’s history – of inclusion and exclusion; of hope and…
Pollard, Ruth: Islamic rewrite of Gallipoli legend
Ruth Pollard ‘Islamic rewrite of Gallipoli legend’, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April 2013 Shows how the current Turkish Government is reinterpreting for political purposes the Gallipoli campaign as an Islamist defence against infidels.
Peters-Little, Frances, Ann Curthoys & John Docker, ed.: Passionate Histories
Frances Peters-Little, Ann Curthoys & John Docker, ed. Passionate Histories: Myth, Memory and Indigenous Australia, Aboriginal History Inc. & ANU E-press, Canberra, 2010; downloadable ‘This book examines the emotional engagements of both indigenous and non-indigenous people with indigenous history. The…
Mark, David: Rudd history wars
David Mark ‘Rudd calls for end to “history wars”’, ABC News, 28 August 2009 Quotes from Prime Ministers Rudd and Howard and Robert Manne. Rudd: [It was time] ‘to go beyond the so-called “black arm [band]” view that refused to…
Manne, Robert: The history wars
Robert Manne ‘The history wars’, The Monthly, November 2009 ‘Only when the overwhelming majority of Australians no longer flinch from the uncomfortable truths about their nation’s history … will we be able to declare the History Wars over.’
Lake, Marilyn, Henry Reynolds et al: What’s wrong with Anzac?
Marilyn Lake & Henry Reynolds with Mark McKenna and Joy Damousi What’s Wrong with Anzac? The Militarisation of Australian History, New South, Sydney, 2010 The book caused considerable controversy on its release and since, although many of the themes in…
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Gare, Deborah & David Ritter, ed.: Making Australian history
Deborah Gare & David Ritter, ed. Making Australian History: Perspectives on the Past since 1788, Thomson Learning, South Melbourne, 2008 Includes an introduction on ‘making history and the politics of the past’ and articles by Mark McKenna on ‘values and…
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Dickenson, Dyrenfurth & Scalmer, ed.: Rebirth of political history
Jacqueline Dickenson, Nick Dyrenfurth & Sean Scalmer, ed. ‘The rebirth of political history’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 56, 1, March, 2010 (special edition) The essays consider how political history has been written and how it ought to be…
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Curthoys, Ann & John Docker: Is history fiction?
Ann Curthoys & John Docker Is History Fiction? University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2010; first published 2005 ‘John Docker and Ann Curthoys find that history has a double character. It is both a rigorous scrutiny of sources, and,…
Curthoys, Ann & Ann McGrath, ed.: Writing histories
Ann Curthoys & Ann McGrath, ed. Writing Histories: Imagination and Narration, Monash Publications in History, Monash University, Melbourne, 2000; republished Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2009 (full text online free) ‘Nine historians reflect on their work as writers, exploring some of…
Curthoys, Ann & Ann McGrath: How to Write History that People Want to Read
Ann Curthoys & Ann McGrath How to Write History that People Want to Read, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2009 ‘Aimed at all kinds of people who write history – academic historians, public historians, professional historians, family historians and students of all…
Cochrane, Peter: Simpson and the Donkey
Peter Cochrane Simpson and the Donkey: The Making of a Legend, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1992; revised edition, 2014 The book explores ‘the legend’s popular appeal and its political significance, its permanent place in Australian folklore and its periodic…
Clark, Anna: History’s Children
Anna Clark History’s Children: History Wars in the Classroom, New South, Sydney, 2008 ‘The classroom has become the battleground of the “history wars”, yet no-one ever asks the children what they think about Australian history and what they like –…
Chynoweth, Adele: Politics in our museums
Adele Chynoweth ‘The history wars are over, now it’s time to get politics back in our museums’, The Conversation, 6 March 2013 Australia’s museums should ‘take heart and more importantly show courage to tell the truth, the whole truth, and…
Michelle Arrow, Frank Bongiorno & Clare Wright, historians
Michelle Arrow, Frank Bongiorno & Clare Wright, with Michael McKernan ‘Historians at work’, National Library of Australia podcast, 10 September 2012 (scroll down) Four historians talk about their craft (1h 45m).
Arrow, Michelle: Making History
Michelle Arrow ‘The Making History initiative and Australian popular history’, Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, 15, 11, 2011, pp. 153-74; reprinted in Jerome de Groot, ed., Public and Popular History, Routledge, London & New York, 2012 [The…
Beaumont, Joan: Anzac Day to VP Day
Joan Beaumont ‘ANZAC Day to VP Day: Arguments and interpretations’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, 40, February 2007, pp. 1-7 Historiography of war in Australia, including many references in notes. Beaumont asks what are the roles of historians and…
Stanley, Peter: Gallipoli – 98 years on: Gallipoli Club address
Peter Stanley Gallipoli – 98 years on: Professor Peter Stanley’s speech to Gallipoli Memorial Club symposium, 7 August 2013 (posted to site, 28 October 2013) On 7 August (the anniversary of the August offensive on Gallipoli) the Gallipoli Memorial Club…
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