AustLit

'Professor Stuart Macintyre passed away on 22 November 2021 after a determined but ultimately unsuccessful battle with cancer. He is mourned by many. His immediate and extended family — of whom he was immensely proud and spoke often — naturally grieve his loss more than anyone else. Beyond that lies a circle of his best friends and close academic collaborators, people with whom Stuart worked closely on topics as diverse as communism in Australia, the history of Melbourne University, working-class politics, the History Wars, and so much more.'  (Introduction)

'There can be no doubt about the centrality of C.E.W. Bean to Australia’s commemoration and understanding of the First World War experience. Bean, the official war correspondent, sent back numerous despatches from Gallipoli and France, often from very close to the front lines. He edited The Anzac Book published in 1916, was a driving force behind the creation of the Australian War Records Section and the Australian War Memorial, and oversaw and wrote much of the twelve-volume official history. Whether he “effectively created” the Anzac legend — as Peter Stanley suggests — is perhaps contestable, but he did give it much of its literary and monumental shape. ' (Introduction)

'Australia’s role in the war against the Ottoman Empire from 1916 to 1918 is much less widely understood than its contribution to the doomed campaign in the Dardanelles or the muddy slog on the Western Front. It is one aspect of Australia’s World War I that has not been overwritten by historians (loosely termed), and thus offers Jonathan King considerable scope to make a meaningful contribution to Australia’s popular understanding of World War I. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly given how much pulp history the centenary of World War I has generated, the result is farcical.'  (Introduction)