Anzac's Dirty Dozen: 12 myths of Australian military history

Description

Australian military history is a landscape of legends. Yet across the length and breadth of our military heritage, accuracy and objectivity are often shunted aside so that tales and myths bent on commemoration, veneration, and the idealisation of 'Australian' virtues can thrive. In Anzac's Dirty Dozen a team of renowned historians resume the battle to expose a host of stubborn fantasies and fabrications that obscure the real story. Did our military history start at Gallipoli? Do we really punch above our weight in military might? Are our soldiers more ethical than others in combat? Is the US-Australia Alliance worth the trouble? And what if the role of Australian women in the war effort has been exaggerated, so that half the population can feel included in the Anzac story? Confronting and clear-eyed, Anzac's Dirty Dozen goes beyond the indulgent, politicised and emotionally-charged rhetoric of Anzac - that sacrosanct idea in the national psyche - to find out exactly what it means to be Australian at war, and proud of it.

Craig Stockings is a senior lecturer in history with the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defense Force Academy. He is the author of "Bardia: Myth, Reality and the Heirs of ANZAC;""The Torch and the Sword;" and "Zombie Myths of Australia Military History."

"One role of the historian is to skewer, bravely and repeatedly, the carbuncles of popular prejudice and superstition. These historians perform their surgery with great verve and authority. The result is that rare thing: a book that is not only a great pleasure, but also a national duty, to read." --Paul Ham, historian and author, "Hiroshima Nagasaki"