Titles to Note

Listed below are a select group of books recently or soon to be published that either contribute to the discussions initiated in the articles in the Australian Army Journal or on subjects that may be of interest in the near future. Some of these books may be reviewed in forthcoming editions of the Journal.

• David Horner, Australia’s Military History for Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, 2010, ISBN 9781742169835, 384 pp, RRP AU$45.00.

  War has had an enormous effect on the way Australians perceive themselves—as a nation and as a culture. The term ‘Anzac’ evokes images of youthful courage and sacrifice; places like Gallipoli, Beersheeba, Kokoda and Long Tan add layers of maturity to these images. But Australia’s military history is more than sepia images and far-flung battlefields, heroic sacrifice and national pride; it is about the importance of the building of a professional defence force that can not just ensure the security of its nation, but represent its values both at home and abroad. As the 100th anniversary of the First World War approaches—and particularly the anniversary of the landing of the 1st Australian Division at Gallipoli Peninsula—David Horner’s Australia’s Military History for Dummies is an important first step in understanding the growth in maturity and professionalism of the Australian military.

  As official historian and professor of Australian defence history at the Australian National University, Professor Horner is well versed and deeply embedded in his subject matter. While the title’s For Dummies may seem to make light of the complexity of Australian military history, Horner’s writing never does. Wars, campaigns and battles are presented as clearly and simply as possible, but never simplistically. Although this book may be targeted at a civilian audience, it also offers the professional soldier deeper insights on the role the military has played in shaping and forming Australian society.

• Wain Fimeri, Charles Bean’s Great War, Madmen Entertainment, 2010, ISBN 9322225088948, 75 mins.

  Charles Bean is obviously famous in Australian military circles for his official histories, and for his role in the vision of the Australian War Memorial. A dramatised documentary, while not groundbreaking in its depiction of Bean, it does add some interesting context. By dramatising his experiences as a journalist both at Cairo and Gallipoli, the filmmakers are attempting to parallel his personal development from journalist to historian with the wider recognition of a unique Australian identity. At times this is overdone. But by interspersing a roundtable discussion by various well-known and well-respected military historians, the filmmakers add a much needed balance to the narrative. Juxtaposing Bean’s journalistic search for the truth about the Australian soldier with the historians’ search for what made Bean important is the most interesting part. As Professor Jeff Grey of the Australian Defence Force Academy reminds us, ‘none of this is particular to Bean, and none of this is particular to the Australian experience’. In this, the title is particularly apt—the Great War was most important to the Australian identity because of the small stories it encapsulated. Charles Bean had the opportunity to weave these stories into a much larger Australian narrative.

• Robyn Kienzle, The Architect of Kokoda, Hachette Australia, 2011, ISBN 9780733627637, 338pp, RRP AU$35.00.

• Peter Ewer, Storm over Kokoda, Murdoch Books, 2011, ISBN 978174660950, 256pp, RRP AU$29.95.

  Australian soldiers’ actions in New Guinea have been the subject of growing interest, especially given the growing popularity of treks along the Kokoda Track among all age groups. Although an important contribution to Australian operations in the Second World War, only recently have more diverse aspects of the New Guinea campaigns been published. These two books add to this growing literature. Robyn Kienzle’s account of her father-in-law, Bert Kiezle’s life is interesting, not just for the light it sheds on the conditions the soldiers and the Papuan carriers endured, but also for the innovative approaches developed to overcome the difficulties of supply in such inhospitable terrain. In the second book, Storm over Kokoda, Peter Ewer explores the role of Australian pilots and crews of 75 Squadron. By drawing on eyewitness accounts and combat reports, Ewer presents a compelling view of air fighting six months before land campaigns began.

• Emily O Goldman, Power in Uncertain Times: Strategy in the Fog of Peace, Stanford University Press, 2011, ISBN 9780804774338, 272pp, RRP US$25.95.

  The current global security situation is not just uncertain; it is complex and chaotic. As China and potentially India increasingly assert their interests in the Asia Pacific region, North Korea and Iran continue their nuclear posture, and violent extremism spreads, predicting future strategic direction has become a puzzle for most nations. But even in this environment, military strategists and defence planners must still allocate resources and make strategic choices that will benefit the interests of their countries. In this book, Professor Emily Goldman argues that world is currently at a moment of ‘strategic pause’. Through the use of historical and contemporary case studies—Russian and British policy between the Crimean War and the First World War, British and US policy between the First and Second World Wars and the US response to the new and more ‘muscular’ shaping in Afghanistan and Iraq—Goldman argues that this pause presents an opportunity. This book provides some interesting insights on the importance of periods of strategic uncertainty in great power strategic rivalry—although dangerous, they can offer states the opportunity to exploit and shape the dynamics of competition and perpetuate their power.

• Mark Clodfelter, Beneficial Bombing: The Progressive Foundations of American Air Power, 1917-1945, University of Nebraska Press, 2011, 392pp, ISBN 9780803233980, RRP US$40.00.

  In this book, Mark Clodfelter links the development of air power with the economically, politically and socially idealistic progressive reform era in the United States. He outlines how the carnage witnessed by US Army Air Service officers in the First World War, particularly during trench warfare, led to a belief that war itself could be reformed. Progressive ideas of efficiency and economy, with the heavy bomber as the solution, held that strategic and precision bombing would limit the bloodshed in war, ultimately making land warfare obsolete. Drawing on archival material and sources that have only recently become available, Clodfelter argues that this belief remains a core tenet of US air power strategy, despite evidence to the contrary.

• Toshi Yoshihara and James R Holmes, Red Star over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenges to the U.S. Maritime Strategy, Naval Institute Press, 2010, 304pp, ISBN 9781591143901, RRP US$36.95.

  Toshi Yoshihara and James R Holmes’s book is an important addition to the growing literature on China’s growing military capabilities and strategies. While the authors’ conclusion that China will increasingly rely on a maritime strategy in its desire to exert influence in its region is not new, their use of Chinese-language sources adds contextual material to the already intense debate in regional security circles. These sources—speeches, interviews, comments and popular journalism, all open-source—may have their limitations in terms of eliciting China’s grand strategy, but they nevertheless offer a unique vision into the strategic mood and the debates being held inside China itself.

• Ben Simpfendorfer, The New Silk Road, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, ISBN 9780230284852, 202 pp, RRP AU$39.95.

  The New Silk Road was originally written in 2009, shortly after the global financial crisis. Since then, China has overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economy and is tipped by some to overtake the United States within the next twenty years. While many analyses of China’s engagement in the region have focused on its motivations in resource-rich Africa, economist Ben Simpfendorfer explores a more ancient, commodities-led link—the Silk Road. By focusing on both the growing economies and the increasingly cross-cultural atmosphere of two cities at either end of this trade corridor, Dubai on the Arabian Peninsula and Yiwu in China, Simpfendorfer warns the West that it must become more deeply involved in the region if it wants to remain relevant. Much of the turmoil in the Middle East has its origins in the lack of economic growth, and as recent surveys have shown many people throughout the Arab nations are now looking to China rather than the West for their future economic, political and social models.

• Rodger Shanahan, The Shi‘a of Lebanon: Clans, Parties and Clerics, I B Tauris, 2011, ISBN 9781848858145, 208 pp, RRP AU$37.00.

  Tension and conflict between the two Muslim sects—Shi‘a and Sunni—affects stability throughout some of the most fragile nations in the Middle East. The path to political realisation for the majorityof Shi‘a in Lebanon has already had an important ripple effect on the politics and religion of the nations that surround it. In this book Rodger Shanahan, a colonel in the Australian Army, presents a detailed examination of the origins and development of the Shi‘a in Lebanon, concluding that the current political landscape mirrors the clan-based society going back centuries. Although first published in 2005, this paperback reprint offers greater insights on why Hizballah has retained broad support even while implicated in the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Harari and other acts of extremism. Through an exploration of the effect of deep familial loyalty and clientalism, as well as the influence of clerical jurisprudence that has influenced the structure of Shi‘ite political organisation, Colonel Shanahan explores both the movement towards political independence manifested in the development of both Hizballah and the sectarian Amal, and its necessary dependence on other powerful nations—for Hizballah, on Iran; and for Amal, on Syria. Given the continuing popular revolutions in the region, this book is timely. Lebanon’s so-called Cedar Revolution may have offered an opportunity for Shi‘ite political realisation, but whether this will be fulfilled remains to be seen.