Australians now seem so fascinated by the Victoria Cross that such attention has begun to get in the way of a balanced perspective on its place in military history.
The Gallipoli campaign is frequently celebrated as the ‘birth’ of Australia as a nation, but were we already well on our way?
AWM
Every country has its most symbolic year from each of the world wars, and can trace the consequences of the bloodletting that accompanied the global realignment of the last century.
We don’t send as many letters these days but, as historians know, there’s nothing quite as resilient.
Ben/Flickr
Australians might now prefer to send emails over private letters but let’s not overlook the letter’s unique, tactile role, particularly in its most intimate expressions.
Archival photographs such as the above, from Gallipoli, are one resource documentary makers draw upon to communicate understandings of historical events.
Australian War Memorial/Flickr
War history used to be brought to TV audiences by donnish lecturers but historical reconstructions now hold sway. Two recent docos about Gallipoli are hybrid examples of the form that help us better understand the past.
As the Royal Irish Rifles fought at the Somme in 1916, the war was shaping epochal events at home.
Imperial War Museums/Wikimedia Commons
Tolstoy’s celebrated novel War and Peace has recently been enjoying some fresh attention thanks to a number of adaptations. BBC Radio 4 broadcast a ten-part adaptation of the novel. Later this year, the…
Dykes on Bikes have been opening the Sydney Mardi Gras since 1988.
Will Choi
Dykes on Bikes have been starting Sydney’s Mardi Gras parade since 1988 – and many for many participants, the yearly ride to Sydney is as important as the parade itself.
Joshua Connor (Russell Crowe) and Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan) in a scene from The Water Diviner.
Universal Pictures/Entertainment One
The Tate’s latest exhibition goes some way towards freeing the history of photography from the artistic canon.
The Allied bombing of Dresden, which killed 25,000 civilians, during the Second World War is but one example of state terrorism.
German Federal Archive
To overcome the kind of relativism captured by the cliché “one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter”, we need to define terrorism independently of who is employing it. Here is the definition…
Bits of the self have historically been an emotional aide memoire.
Cristiana Gasparotto
As Valentine’s Day approaches, many of us will think about sharing a token of our affection. The ubiquitous card is often teamed with a staple of the season: chocolate, perfume or flowers. These gifts…
In 1810, after seven years of the Napoleonic Wars, the prime minister, Lord Liverpool, penned a memorandum stating that Britain’s military was: “as large a force … as the Population and Finances of the…
Why won’t Japan admit to the past?
Pichi Chuang/Reuters
In 1943, during the height of World War II, fifteen-year-old Liu Mianhuan was tied up and taken away by Imperial Japanese troops from her village in Yu County, Shanxi Province, China. She was confined…
Unfortunately, I will not see Germany: Memories of a Nation at the British Museum because it closes this weekend – and I live in Perth, Australia. As a result, I am unable to speak about my personal response…
Three Australian IS fighters may have been killed in the last month, including Mohammad Ali Baryalei.
AAP Image/YouTube
Estimates are that there are more than 60 Australian citizens in the ranks of the Islamic State (IS) armies sweeping through Syria and Iraq. In a recent case, reported by the Sydney Morning Herald last…
Instead of dying out, Anti-Semitic myths have withstood the test of time.
Eight hundred years ago, a monk named Thomas of Monmouth wrote a bogus account of the life of St. William, a Christian boy supposedly abducted by “the Jews” of Norwich. A boy – “like an innocent lamb…
Despite the importance of Remembrance Day in marking the end of the ‘war to end all wars’, it sits below Anzac Day in the estimation of most Australians.
AAP/Julian Smith
For all its importance, Remembrance Day, November 11, does not capture the Australian imagination in the way that Anzac Day does, despite the sustained efforts of successive governments to promote the…