The Australian Historical Association
The site for and about historians working in or on Australia.
Congratulations to Sandra Wilson, Robert Cribb, Beatrice Trefalt and Dean Aszkielowicz, who have recently published Japanese War Criminals: The Politics of Justice After the Second World War (Columbia University Press). The book details how, beginning in late 1945, the United States, Britain, China, Australia, France, the Netherlands, and later the Philippines, the Soviet Union, and the Read more …
Peter Monteath and Mandy Paul’s book Interned (Wakefield Press, 2014) was the basis for a recent ABC Radio National Earshot program on interred photographer Paul Dubotzki, who was allowed to keep his camera and document life in the camp: ‘Torrens Island internees, 1915’.
New on the Honest History website: a long essay on the battle by Vietnam veterans to have a new independent history written about health issues post-Vietnam, particularly the effects of Agent Orange an article by John Brookes on the links between nationalism and phenomena like Anzac an article by David Stephens, drawing upon recent Turkish Read more …
Brett Bowden has just published a new book on the 1942 bombing of Darwin, Direct Hit: The Bombing of Darwin Post Office (Rosenberg Publishing) that reveals the bravery and resourcefulness of PMG staff and other civilians at the affected site where the Overland Telegraph met the undersea cable which linked Australia to the rest of Read more …
Joy Damousi’s Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War: Australia’s Greek Immigrants after World War II and the Greek Civil War (Cambridge University Press) was published this month. Focusing on Australia’s Greek immigrants in the aftermath of the Second World War and the Greek Civil War, the book explores the concept of remembrance within Read more …
Stuart Macintyre and Les Louis (along with historians Glenn Mitchell, Drew Cottle, Greg Mallory and curator of the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Zhu ChengShan) were contributors to the documentary The Dalfram Dispute,1938: Pig Iron Bob which covers the wartime dock dispute at Port Kembla during which Robert Menzies gained the moniker ‘Pig Iron Bob’. The documentary Read more …
The August issue of History Australia includes a special feature on displaced persons guest edited by Marke Edele and Sheila Fitzpatrick with contributions from Paul Sendziuk, Klaus Neumann, Jayne Persian and Ruth Balint, as well as the editors themselves. The editors’ introduction – ‘Displaced Persons: From the Soviet Union to Australia in the wake of the Read more …
Yorick Smaal has just published Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific 1939–45: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). The book explores the lives and loves of men across Australia and forward bases in the south seas and the official responses that sought to regulate and contain expressions of homosexuality Read more …
Honest History e-Newsletter no. 28 is now up on their website. It includes links to new items on the Honest History site as well as the popular Whizzbangs, which this time focus on the reality of war (to mark the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima-Nagasaki and the centenary of Lone Pine). New items include a look Read more …
Any Australian who lived through the Second World War would remember the frightening posters warning that ‘Enemy Agents are Listening’ and ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships.’ The Fifth Column was the name given to the Axis agents believed to be lurking in Allied countries. Their mission was to carry out acts of sabotage, cause fear and Read more …