AustLit

'As we now have experienced four years of the centenary commemorations of the Great War of 1914-1918 it behoves historians to examine the effect of that conflict on the population. There exist a number of studies on the working class, but how, for example did the intellectual leaders of the time assess our situation? All the universities had established war committees to offer the expertise of the staff for the war effort and that ranged from chemists and engineers to work for munitions production on the practical side while on the propaganda aspects of warfare, it was the history professors and others in the humanities who had first hand experience of Germany and could therefore inform the public concerning the political-cultural background to the conflict. In addition we recall that there were already in existence voluntary Archbishop St Clair George Alfred think tanks in all capital cities of the Donaldson. then British Empire/Commonwealth (Anglican Archives, Brisbane) called the Round Table of which some of the most highly educated citizens were members.' (Introduction)