Jeffrey Grey

Readers of this review will likely know of this book as a result of the howls of outrage reported in the media at the beginning of December concerning Max Hastings’s claims about Australian performance in the fighting in 1945. It is not fair to judge a long and complex book on the basis of a single, ten-page chapter, but since that is the section of the book that has attracted attention in this ... (read more)

The myth and reality of the Anzac legend has proven a perennial subject of inquiry and argument for over thirty years now, since the publication of Ken Inglis’s justly famous articles in Meanjin and elsewhere in 1964–65. These prompted a spirited exchange with the late Geoff Serle and others. More recently, John Robertson examined the Gallipoli campaign in terms of the myth (1990), and found t ... (read more)

Books like this are not written for people like me, and it is only fair to acknowledge that at the outset. ‘Australia’s most beloved popular historian’ (he must be, it says so on the inside flap) actually doesn’t want to be regarded as an historian, but as a storyteller (he says so himself), and so has little or no interest in satisfying the requirements and expectations that a professiona ... (read more)