In recent years Anzac an idea as much as an actual army corps has become the dominant force within Australian history, overshadowing everything else. The commemoration of Anzac Day is bigger than ever, while Remembrance Day, VE Day, VP Day and other military anniversaries grow in significance each year.

War is traditionally considered a male experience. By extension, the genre of war literature is a male-dominated field, and the tale of the battlefield remains the privileged (and only canonised) war story. In Australia, although women have written extensively about their wartime experiences, their voices have been distinctively silenced. Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend calls for a re-definition of war literature to include the numerous voices of women writers, and further recommends a re-reading of Australian national literatures, with women’s war writing foregrounded, to break the hold of a male-dominated literary tradition and pass on a vital, but unexplored, women’s tradition. Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend examines the rich body of World Wars I and II and Vietnam War literature by Australian women, providing the critical attention and treatment that they deserve. Donna Coates records the reaction of Australian women writers to these conflicts, illuminating the complex role of gender in the interpretation of war and in the cultural history of twentieth-century Australia. By visiting an astonishing number of unfamiliar, non-canonical texts, Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend profoundly alters our understanding of how Australian women writers have interpreted war, especially in a nation where the experience of colonising a frontier has spawned enduring myths of identity and statehood.

The flying career of John Robertson Duigan spanned just a decade from 1908 to 1918. 100 years ago he built and successfully flew the first aeroplane made in Australia using only photographs, journal articles and an unreliable textbook as his guides. He was the first Australian to fly a powered Australian-made aeroplane in Australia. The full story of John Duigan and his flying career has now been published for the first time.

‘A century ago we got it wrong. We sent thousands of young Australians on a military operation that was barely more than a disaster. It’s right that a hundred years later we should feel strongly about that. But have we got our remembrance right? What lessons haven’t we learned about war, and what might be the cost of our Anzac obsession?’ Defence analyst and former army officer James Brown believes that Australia is expending too much time, money and emotion on the Anzac legend, and that today’s soldiers are suffering for it. Vividly evoking the war in Afghanistan, Brown reveals the experience of the modern soldier. He looks closely at the companies and clubs that trade on the Anzac story. He shows that Australians spend a lot more time looking after dead warriors than those who are alive. We focus on a cult of remembrance, instead of understanding a new world of soldiering and strategy. And we make it impossible to criticise the Australian Defence Force, even when it makes the same mistakes over and over. None of this is good for our soldiers or our ability to deal with a changing world. With respect and passion, Brown shines a new light on Anzac’s long shadow and calls for change. "Bold, original, challenging - James Brown tackles the burgenoning Anzac industry and asks Australians to re-examine how we think about the military and modern-day service." - Leigh Sales "The best book yet written, not just on Australia's Afghan war, but on war itself and the creator/destroyer myth of Anzac." - John Birmingham James Brown is a former Australian Army officer, who commanded a cavalry troop in Southern Iraq, served on the Australian taskforce headquarters in Baghdad, and was attached to Special Forces in Afghanistan. Today he is the Military Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy where he works on strategic military issues and defence policy. He also chairs the NSW Government’s Contemporary Veterans Forum. He lives in Sydney.

Raise a glass for an Anzac. Run for an Anzac. Camp under the stars for an Anzac. Is there anything Australians won’t do to keep the Anzac legend at the centre of our national story? But standing firm on the other side of the Anzac enthusiasts is a chorus of critics claiming that the appetite for Anzac is militarising our history and indoctrinating our children. So how are we to make sense of this struggle over how we remember the Great War? Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography cuts through the clamour to provide a much-needed historical perspective on the battle over Anzac. It 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 importantly, it asks why so many Australians persist with the fiction that the nation was born on 25 April 1915.

The story of the bloody 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge is, according to many of today’s tellings, a heroic founding moment for Canada. This noble, birth-of-a-nation narrative is regularly applied to the Great War in general. Yet this mythical tale is rather new. “Vimyism”— today’s official story of glorious, martial patriotism—contrasts sharply with the complex ways in which veterans, artists, clerics, and even politicians who had supported the war interpreted its meaning over the decades. Was the Great War a futile imperial debacle? A proud, nation-building milestone? Contending Great War memories have helped to shape how later wars were imagined. The Vimy Trap provides a powerful probe of commemoration cultures. This subtle, fast-paced work of public history—combining scholarly insight with sharp-eyed journalism, and based on primary sources and school textbooks, battlefield visits and war art—explains both how and why peace and war remain contested terrain in ever-changing landscapes of Canadian memory.

Anzac Memories was first published to acclaim in 1994, and has achieved international renown for its pioneering contribution to the study of war memory and mythology. Michael McKernan wrote that the book gave ‘as good a picture of the impact of the Great War on individuals and Australia as we are likely to get in this generation’, and Michael Roper concluded that ‘an immense achievement of this book is that it so clearly illuminates the historical processes that left men like my grandfather forever struggling to fashion myths which they could live by’. In this new edition Alistair Thomson explores how the Anzac legend has transformed over the past quarter century, how a ‘post-memory’ of the Great War creates new challenges and opportunities for making sense of the national past, and how veterans’ war memories can still challenge and complicate national mythologies. He returns to a family war history that he could not write about twenty years ago because of the stigma of war and mental illness, and he uses newly released Repatriation files to question his own earlier account of veterans’ post-war lives and memories and to think afresh about war and memory.

This book bridges theoretical gaps that exist between the meta-concepts of memory, place and identity by positioning its lens on the emplaced practices of commemoration and the remembrance of war and conflict. This book examines how diverse publics relate to their wartime histories through engagements with everyday collective memories, in differing places. Specifically addressing questions of place-making, displacement and identity, contributions shed new light on the processes of commemoration of war in everyday urban façades and within generations of families and national communities. Contributions seek to clarify how we connect with memories and places of war and conflict. The spatial and narrative manifestations of attempts to contextualise wartime memories of loss, trauma, conflict, victory and suffering are refracted through the roles played by emotion and identity construction in the shaping of post-war remembrances. This book offers a multidisciplinary perspective, with insights from history, memory studies, social psychology, cultural and urban geography, to contextualise memories of war and their ‘use’ by national governments, perpetrators, victims and in family histories.

What does Australia’s military history reveal about us? In Beyond The Broken Years – fifty years after The Broken Years, Bill Gammage’s classic on World War One soldiers, was published – provocative military historian Peter Stanley argues why it’s vital for Australians to understand how our military past has been created. By whom, how and with what consequences. Stanley explores military history and the storytellers – from historians Charles Bean, Henry Reynolds, Joan Beaumont and David Horner to ‘’storians’ Peter FitzSimons and Les Carlyon. And grapples with what it means to write military history, its different approaches, the rise of popular writers and much more. He asks readers to consider a genre that plays a central role in the Australian identity, but many take for granted. ‘An unflinching and insightful tour through the evolving landscape of Australian war history, led by one of the country’s most trusted guides. This impressive blend of scholarship and reflection is crucial reading for anyone wanting to understand the place of war in Australian history.’ – Kate Ariotti, University of Queensland ‘All historians of Australian military history will be indebted to Peter Stanley for this virtuoso commentary on the books of the field, written with his characteristic flair, insight and delight in controversy.’ – Emeritus Professor Joan Beaumont, Australian National University ‘Peter Stanley’s evocation of Australia’s military history is not to be missed. Half a century after Bill Gammage’s superb book The Broken Years was published, Stanley has cleverly drawn on the cream of Australian military historians to underline the key elements of Australia’s military past. However, it is Stanley’s own analysis of the importance of Australia’s military past that has given new meaning to the importance of Australians at war. Remarkably, Stanley has researched 1300 books written by Australian authors since 1974. The result is a gripping overview of our military history that should not be missed.’ – The late Tim Bowden AM, author, radio and television broadcaster, producer and oral historian ‘Peter Stanley is surely the military historian’s historian. This book is an extraordinary achievement, both knowledgeable and eminently readable. It should take pride of place in any military history library.’ – Mike Carlton, author, broadcaster and journalist ‘In engaging prose, and with a light touch, Stanley analyses the military history boom of the last fifty years, pondering the rise and rise of Anzac commemoration, and making a strong claim for better representation of frontier wars at the Australian War Memorial. Beyond The Broken Years will be devoured by those who enjoy military history and will endure as the authoritative account of how Australians have understood our experience of war.’ – Carolyn Holbrook, Deakin University ‘For more than a century Australia’s military experience has been central to the nation’s identity, and the bedrock of understanding that experience has been the published histories, academic studies and personal stories. Peter Stanley’s book is a brilliant, erudite, and insightful examination of the books that have enlightened, strengthened and at times challenged our understanding of Australia’s military history in the past fifty years. Beyond The Broken Years is a reminder that there are multiple strands to Australia’s military history. This is not just because Australia continues to go to new wars, but also because our understanding of the impact of war continues to grow.’ – David Horner, Emeritus Professor, Australian National University ‘As an exceptional historian and a generous patron and mentor, Peter Stanley is ideally placed to analyse the last 50 years of Australian military historiography. This brilliant and original book will entertain and inform readers at all levels of expertise. Beyond The Broken Years will inspire all readers to read (or write) more Australian military history.’ – Mark Johnston, Head of History and Classics, Scotch College Melbourne ‘Aficionados of Australia’s rich military history will enjoy reading this latest work by prolific military author and historian, Peter Stanley. Beyond The Broken Years will stimulate reading, and further analysis and research on Australia’s military history, which is important, as Australia’s military history reveals much about us. I commend this book to you.’ – Paul Irving, MAJGEN (Ret’d) AM PSM RFD, Manager, Royal United Services Institute NSW Ursula Davidson Library ‘Another Stanley original. Inspiring, thoughtful, provocative and personal, this book will have you reaching for your pencil to jot down titles for your next library visit. Essential reading for all Australian military history enthusiasts.’ – Professor Emerita Melanie Oppenheimer, Australian National University and Flinders University ‘A spirited romp through the annals of Australian military history. Searching, sceptical, self-reflexive and engaging, Peter Stanley vigorously ponders the past and future of the discipline.’ – Professor Bruce Scates, Australian National University

Anzac Battlefield: A Gallipoli Landscape of War and Memory explores the transformation of Gallipoli's landscape in antiquity, during the famed battles of the First World War and in the present day. Drawing on archival, archaeological and cartographic material, this book unearths the deep history of the Gallipoli peninsula, setting the Gallipoli campaign in a broader cultural and historical context. The book presents the results of an original archaeological survey, the research for which was supported by the Australian, New Zealand and Turkish Governments. The survey examines materials from both sides of the battlefield, and sheds new light on the environment in which Anzac and Turkish soldiers endured the conflict. Richly illustrated with both Ottoman and Anzac archival images and maps, as well as original maps and photographs of the landscape and archaeological findings, Anzac Battlefield is an important contribution to our understanding of Gallipoli and its landscape of war and memory.