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Griffith Review 48: Enduring Legacies edited by Julianne Schultz and Peter Cochrane hits the shops today!
2015 is a seminal year in Australian history, marking the centenary of the Gallipoli offensive, the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War in the Pacific, and the fortieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.
Political agendas require a national story that is simple, fixed and inviolable. In the next four years, more than $300 million will be spent on commemorating the Centenary of Anzac...but the increasingly politicised nature of commemorative ceremonies raises significant questions about the mythologised treatment of warfare. Modern Australia is a product of the great wars of last century. They transformed the society in ways we don’t often recognise.
We need to move away from celebration and commemoration of the Anzac legend. We need to reflect, not only on the actions of those wars, but on their consequences and enduring legacies. Long after the triumph and tragedy of the battlefield subsides, there persists the enduring human, political, economic and military costs of war. The battles are important, but the lessons to be learnt in their aftermath need to be interrogated to explain how we got to where we are.
Enduring Legacies draws together distinguished soldiers, military historians, academics and popular writers to challenge myths and explore the multifaceted legacies of the wars of the twentieth century, providing new insights, graphic portraits and telling analysis of their consequences.
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