This edited book includes chapters that explore the impact of war and its aftermath in language and official discourse. It covers a broad chronological range from the First World War to very recent experiences of war, with a focus on Australia and the Pacific region. It examines three main themes in relation to language: the impact of war and trauma on language, the language of war remembrance, and the language of official communications of war and the military. An innovative work that takes an interdisciplinary approach to the themes of war and language, the collection will be of interest to students and scholars across linguistics, literary studies, history and conflict studies.
War is such a nightmare. It’s hard to believe any war can retain a positive aura for decades. Yet the vast conflict in the Pacific is a shibboleth for Australian politics to this day. Politicians in particular use its appeal to legitimize modern wars. Tom
Alarming levels of fear and suspicion developed in Australia following the German victories in Europe of 1940. It was believed the Nazis had prepared an army of subversives a Fifth Column to undermine the war effort. These suspicions plagued the Australian home front for much of the war.
This introduces students to significant campaigns in the Allies' war against Japan in Asia and the Pacific, as well as the effects on Australia. The content aligns with the Australian Curriculum and includes focus questions to help direct students' further study. The stories and events provide students with a glimpse into the experiences of those who served overseas, as well as those who remained on the home front.
Pearl Harbor; The fall of Singapore; Curtin's fights with Churchill; The bombing of Darwin; POW camps; The battle of Midway; Kokoda; Buna; Kamikaze pilots; Hiroshima. These words alone are enough to convey the terror, courage and drama of the Pacific War, when the balance of power stood on a knife-edge and when the future of Australia was on the brink - threatened by Japanese aggression on the one hand and British deception on the other. After a conflict that took an unimaginable number of lives and ended with the unleashing of the most powerful weapon the world had ever seen, the Allies emerged victorious. Australia, however, was criticised by Churchill and his generals for showing cowardice in the face of the enemy and for not caring about the fate of other nations. The endorsement of these claims by several military historians today shows that the smear has not gone away. Until now.
First published in 1976, The Search for Security in the Pacific 1901-1914 is the first volume in a pioneering two-volume history of Australia's relations with the world, from the founding of the Commonwealth to the Great War and its immediate aftermath. This book is based on wide-ranging research in collections of personal and official papers in Australia, Britain, the United States and Canada and offers original insights into Australia's political culture. In taking the story up to the outbreak of the European conflict it shows the great impact that the looming presence of East Asia had on Australia's perception of the world and on the evolution of a distinctive defence and foreign policy. It tells the story of how in an age of race nationalism the fear of Asia led first to the making of the Commonwealth and the White Australia policy and then after Japan's defeat of Russia in 1905 to the potential prospect of a military invasion from the north. This sense of an 'Australian Crisis' pervaded the whole society and found expression in poetry, plays, novels, cartoons, at least one film, newspaper editorials as well as political speeches. To meet this threat Australian leaders, against all the advice from the British authorities, introduced compulsory military training and established a navy and a fledgling air force. The outbreak of the European war found the Australians resentful about the British betrayal and anxious to know what the Empire's involvement in that conflict might mean for the Pacific. This divergence of security concerns created tension between Australia's community of culture and its community of interest, between its British identity and its geopolitical circumstances.
The most complete telling of one of the most significant campaigns of the Pacific War and Australia's role in it. 'Java is heaven, Burma is hell, but you never come back alive from New Guinea' - Japanese military saying The capture of Lae was the most complex operation for the Australian army in the Second World War. In many ways it was also a rehearsal for the D-Day invasion of France, with an amphibious landing combined with the first successful large-scale Allied airborne operation of the war. D-Day New Guinea brings together the extraordinary stories of the Australian, American and Japanese participants in this battle, and of the fight against the cloying jungle, the raging rivers and the soaring mountain ranges that made New Guinea such a daunting battlefield. Phillip Bradley brings a compelling clarity, humanity and new insight into a little known but crucial Australian battle of the Pacific War.
