Beersheba Centenary Edition
Beersheba Centenary Edition

Author: Paul Daley

Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing

Published: 2017-10-02

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 052287181X

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A hundred years ago in October 1917 members of the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade participated in what is now regarded as the last great successful cavalry charge. Waving bayonets overhead in the dying light, they raced across six kilometres of exposed ground in Palestine, surprising the well-entrenched Turks. It was the decisive blow in the British capture of the strategic stronghold of Beersheba. The story of this remarkable military victory has largely slipped through the cracks of history, eclipsed in Australian sentiment by stories of dramatic defeat and loss at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. Paul Daley goes in search of the story of Beersheba. What he uncovers is a story of ordinary men capable of extraordinary acts, as he sheds new light on a dark episode starkly at odds with the Anzac mythology.

Beersheba Centenary Edition
Beersheba Centenary Edition

Author: Paul Daley

Publisher:

Published: 2018-02-08

Total Pages: 540

ISBN-13: 9781525271069

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"A hundred years ago in October 1917 members of the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade participated in what is now regarded as the last great successful cavalry charge. Waving bayonets overhead in the dying light, they raced across six kilometres of exposed ground in Palestine, surprising the well-entrenched Turks. It was the decisive blow in the British capture of the strategic stronghold of Beersheba. The story of this remarkable military victory has largely slipped through the cracks of history, eclipsed in Australian sentiment by stories of dramatic defeat and loss at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. Paul Daley goes in search of the story of Beersheba. What he uncovers is a story of ordinary men capable of extraordinary acts, as he sheds new light on a dark episode starkly at odds with the Anzac mythology."

Defending Gallipoli
Defending Gallipoli

Author: Harvey Broadbent

Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing

Published: 2015-03-02

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 0522864570

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Based on exclusive access to Turkish archives, Defending Gallipoli reveals how the Turks reacted and defended Gallipoli. Author and Turkish language expert Harvey Broadbent spent five years translating everything from official records to soldiers' personal diaries and letters to unearth the Turkish story. It is chilling and revealing to see this famous battle in Australian history through the 'enemy' lens. The book commences with a jihad, which sees the soldiers fighting for country and God together. But it also humanises the Turkish soldiers, naming them, revealing their emotions, and ultimately shows how the Allies totally misunderstood and underestimated them Defending Gallipoli fills a huge gap in the history of the Gallipoli campaign.

From the Edge
From the Edge

Author: Mark McKenna

Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing

Published: 2016-10-03

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0522862608

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In March 1797, five British sailors and 12 Bengali seamen struggled ashore after their longboat broke apart in a storm. Their fellow-survivors from the wreck of the Sydney Cove were stranded more than 500 kilometres southeast in Bass Strait. To rescue their mates and to save themselves the 19 men must walk 700 kilometres north to Sydney. That remarkable walk is a story of endurance but also of unexpected Aboriginal help. From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories recounts four such extraordinary and largely forgotten stories: the walk of shipwreck survivors; the founding of a 'new Singapore' in western Arnhem Land in the 1840s; Australia's largest industrial development project nestled amongst outstanding Indigenous rock art in the Pilbara; and the ever-changing story of James Cook's time in Cooktown in 1770. This new telling of the central drama of Australian history ;the encounter between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, may hold the key to understanding this land and its people.

Not Playing the Game
Not Playing the Game

Author: Xavier Fowler

Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing

Published: 2021-11-02

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 0522877710

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War remembrance and sport have become increasingly entwined in Australia, with AFL and NRL Anzac Day fixtures attracting larger crowds than dawn services. National representative teams travel halfway around the world to visit battle sites etched in military folklore. To validate their integration into this culturally sacred occasion, promoters point to the special role of sport in the development of the Anzac legend, and with it, the birth of the nation. The air of sombre reflection that surrounds each Anzac Day is accompanied by a celebratory nationalism that sport and war supposedly embody. But what exactly is being remembered, and indeed forgotten, in these official commemorations and tributes? In Not Playing the Game, Xavier Fowler reveals that the place of sport in the Great War was highly contested. Civilian patriots and public officials complained that spectator sport distracted young men from enlisting and wasted public finances better spent elsewhere. Sport’s defenders argued it was a necessary escape for a population weary of the pressures of war. These competing views often reflected differences of class, politics and ethnicity, and resulted in ferocious, sometimes violent, clashes. Not Playing the Game challenges the way our memories of the war are influenced by the fervour of sport, painting a picture not of triumph but immense turmoil and tragedy.

Sand in Our Souls
Sand in Our Souls

Author: Leone Huntsman

Publisher: Melbourne University Publish

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780522849455

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Images of 'the beach' pervade Australian popular culture. However the deeper significance of the experience of 'the beach', and its influence on Australian culture generally, have not yet been seriously explored. How, why and when did the beach become part of the Australian way of life? In Sand in our Souls Leone Huntsman describes the forces and pressures that encouraged or impeded Australians' enjoyment of sand and surf, from early enjoyment of bathing, through nearly a century of repressive restrictions, to freedom won in the face of drawn-out opposition. The ways in which artists, writers, film-makers and the advertising industry have depicted the beach are examined for the light they throw on the beach's significance. She traces the development of a distinctively Australian way-of-being-at-the-beach, suggesting that the beach experience has been absorbed into our emerging culture and continues to shape it in subtle ways. Huntsman's provocative arguments will stimulate debate on the concept of 'national identity' appropriate for a new Australian century, and promote a deeper understanding of an aspect of life in Australia that is cherished by many of those who live here.

Broken Nation
Broken Nation

Author: Joan Beaumont

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 660

ISBN-13: 1741751381

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The Great War was, for the majority of Australians, one that was fought at home. As casualties of this monstrous war mounted, they triggered a political crisis of unprecedented ferocity in Australian history. The fault-lines that emerged in 1916-18 around

Dinkum Diggers
Dinkum Diggers

Author: Dale James Blair

Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing

Published: 2016-06-03

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 052286502X

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Rural Australia and the Great War
Rural Australia and the Great War

Author: John McQuilton

Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing

Published: 2013-05-09

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 0522863469

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In the cities and in the countryside of Australia, the Great War of 1914 - 1918 marched to somewhat different tempos. John McQuilton evokes the wartime experience of all rural Australians by capturing the moods of the country towns and hamlets of North Eastern Victoria. Every aspect of the war - recruiting, fund-raising and, eventually, homecoming and the design of the war memorial - was marked by a mixture of small-minded local politics, heroism and sacrifice, and grief. Individuals, whether journalists, town councillors or leading local citizens, shaped the recurring battles on the home front. The conscription debates were particularly vicious, as the countryside exhausted its pool of volunteers long before the cities. In small communities the 'shirker' could not hide; everyone knew which families had sent men to the front, and who had genuine reasons for staying home. This intimacy worked in favour of the many German Australians: country people knew them as trusted neighbours, but in the cities they were reviled as enemy aliens. Rural Australia and the Great War is unique among writing on the First World War in creating a richly detailed picture of wartime in a particular part of country Australia. For country and city readers alike, this is fascinating social history.