Military History

Anzac’s Dirty Dozen: 12 Myths of Australian Military History edited by Craig Stockings

by Robin Prior •

May 2012, no. 341

NewSouth Publishing, $34.99 pb, 346 pp, 9781742232881

Military History

Anzac’s Dirty Dozen: 12 Myths of Australian Military History edited by Craig Stockings

by Robin Prior •

May 2012, no. 341

This book is the second in a series compiled by a group of Canberra academics on the distortions they perceive to surround the writing of military history in this country. Before the book itself is tackled, a word should be said about the titles they have chosen for their two volumes. The first (published in 2010) is called Zombie Myths of Australian Military History; this one is entitled Anzac’s Dirty Dozen: 12 Myths of Australian Military History. As happens to many a poor author, these hideously ugly titles may have been imposed on the book by the publisher. If not, they need serious help when they title future volumes.

Robin Prior

Robin Prior was born in rural South Australia. He studied at the University of Adelaide, completing a doctorate in 1979. He was an ARC Fellow at Adelaide for three years before taking a position with the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. He was Head of the School of History from 1998 to 2004 and Foundation Head of the School of Humanities and Social Science from 2004 to 2007. He is now Visiting Professorial Fellow at the University of Adelaide. He has published widely on World War I: Command on the Western Front, Passchendaele: The Untold Story (1996) and The Somme (2005) with Trevor Wilson, and Churchill’s ‘World Crisis’ As History (1983) and Gallipoli (2009), as sole author. He is an editor of The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History (1995). He is working on a book on Britain in 1940.