Written by: Anthony King John Wiley & Sons , 2021, 288 pp Paperback ISBN: 978-1-509-54366-3 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-509-54365-6   Reviewed by:  Charles Knight We run into a curious void in the literature of warfare. Those practitioners of the art who were also its ablest theorists, scholars and writers dwelt on its varied aspects to the limit of their imaginations. One thing, however, they did not touch upon—combat where life is centred. Run through the list of writers and their works—Frederick, de Saxe, …

  Written by David Horner Allen & Unwin Book Publishers , 2022, 464 pp Paperback ISBN: 9781761065958   Reviewed by:  John Nash Eminent historian David Horner’s latest work is concerned with Australian war leadership and asks the question: ‘Why has Australia gone to war nine times in a century?’ It focuses on the politicians and top-level military leaders in Australian history and examines why and how Australia committed its troops to wars, from the First World War through to the second Iraq War in 2003. …

  Written by Craig Stockings University of New South Wales Press , 2022, 976 pp Hardback ISBN: 9781742236230 eBook ISBN: 9781742239354   Reviewed by:  Jean Bou Australia has a unique tradition of official histories of its military commitments. In most countries, official histories reflect the tradition of the ‘staff history’. Produced by the military services themselves, the emphasis is on military matters and how those services went about things with the resources at their disposal. One consequence is …

Elite Souls: Portraits of Valor in Iraq and Afghanistan   Written by: Raymond James Yamond Naval Institute Press , 2022, 384 pp Hardcover ISBN: 9781682477137   Reviewed by: Garth Pratten In many respects Elite Souls: Portraits of Valor in Iraq and Afghanistan is a straightforward book. Raymond James Raymond, a former British diplomat and more recently historian and social scientist, delivers exactly what he promises in the title: five stories of young United States Army officers in action during the most …

  Written by: Tom Gilling Allen and Unwin Book Publisher , 2022, 320 pp Paperback ISBN: 9781760879273   Reviewed by: James Bryant Two thousand four hundred Allied servicemen died as prisoners of the Japanese at Sandakan in Borneo, many on the so-called ‘death march’ that took place along a 260 kilometre long jungle track between Sandakan and Ranau. Exhausted, malnourished and wracked by illnesses like malaria and beri-beri, all who fell out on that track were kicked or bludgeoned to death, or shot. …

  Written by: Stephen Robinson Exisle Publishing , 2022, 304 pp Hardcover ISBN: 9781922539205 Ebook ISBN: 9781991001313   Reviewed by: Tim Gellel Every army has its Thermopylae. One of modern China’s is the story of Lieutenant Colonel Xie Jinyuan’s four-day defence of the Sihang Warehouse against Japanese attacks during the 1937 Battle of Shanghai. Stephen Robinson’s Eight Hundred Heroes, which examines that story, studies that action as an information operation as well as a tactical, unit-level fight.  …

  Edited by Catherine Grant, Alessio Patalano and James Russell Howgate Publishing , 2021, 238 pp Paperback ISBN: 9781912440269     Reviewed by : Darren Cronshaw Today’s Defence members are more likely to engage in the demands and dilemmas of ‘war in the grey zone’. The cyber domain is challenging traditional notions concerning the character of war. The cyber domain is also extending into sub-threshold contested spaces with cyber-based sabotage, surveillance information dominance and influence activities. …

  Written by: Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis Penguin Press , 2021, 303 pp Paperbook ISBN: 9781405966429 Ebook ISBN: 9781405966436   Reviewed by: Albert Palazzo In 1978 the retired British general Sir John Hackett published an account of a fictional war between the United States and the Soviet Union. For me, reading it is a distant memory, but at the time it formed a part of my foundation as a scholar of war. The Cold War was ongoing, and growing up in New York City nuclear annihilation was …

    Written by: RA Howlett Crown Agents for the Colonies on behalf of the Government of Fiji , 1948, 267 pp   Reviewed by: Sonya Russell and Atonio Nagauna In the years since former Prime Minister Morrison’s ‘Pacific Step-up’ foreign policy shift, the Australian Army has enhanced its engagement with security forces across the Pacific. As engagement continues and combined operational deployments become regular, The History of the Fiji Military Forces 1939–1945 is essential reading for any personnel seeking …

  Written by: Christine Helliwell Penguin Random House , 2021, 512 pp Paperback ISBN: 9780143790020 Reviewed by: Peter J Dean We read books with predetermined ideas and biases. I approached Christine Helliwell’s book Semut: The Untold Story of a Secret Australian Operation in WWII Borneo firmly cloaked in the regalia of my academic background as a specialist in Australian strategy and military operations. As well as studying the Borneo campaigns closely, I have walked the battlefields at Tarakan, Brunei …