Challenging Anzac Stories that don’t fit the legend

The Anzac legend has shaped Australia’ s national identity for more than a century. Yet many Australians’ experiences of war do not fit comfortably within this mythic narrative. In Challenging Anzac, leading historians explore these stories: the diggers who contested the dominance of politically conservative veterans; soldiers whose war experience led them to later radical protest; military personnel denied recognition as Anzacs by their non-traditional service or behaviour; and men for whom the dissonance in their postwar lives was so profound that they took their own lives. Stories that deviated from the Anzac legend have been erased, elided and adapted to ‘ fit’ the legend. Edited by award-winning historians Mia Martin Hobbs, Carolyn Holbrook and Joan Beaumont, this anthology examines how the reality of warfare has always been at odds with mythic representation, and explains why, despite this, the Anzac legend has survived.

Joan Beaumont is an internationally recognised historian of Australia in the two world wars, Australian defence and foreign policy, the history of prisoners of war and the memory and heritage of war. Her publications include the critically acclaimed Broken Nation: Australians and the Great War, Serving Our Country: Indigenous Australia’ s, war, defence and citizenship and Gull Force: Australian POWs on Ambon and Hainan, 1941– 45. Mia Martin Hobbs is an oral historian of war and conflict, with a research focus on the Vietnam War, War on Terror, gender, peace, security, and post-war reconciliation. Her first book, Return to Vietnam: An Oral History of American and Australian Veterans’ Journeys, won the Oral History Australia Book Award in 2022. She has written on anti-war activism among US veterans in Journal of American History and the impact of the Anzac Revival on Australian veterans’ war memory in Australian Journal of Politics & History. She is presently undertaking an oral history with women and minority veterans. Carolyn Holbrook is the Director of Australian Policy and History. Carolyn’ s books include Anzac: The unauthorised biography, The Great War: Aftermath and commemoration, edited with Keir Reeves, and Lessons from History: Leading historians tackle Australia’ s greatest challenges, co-edited with Lyndon Megarrity and David Lowe.