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A Research Agenda for Military Geographies   Edited by: Rachel Woodward Elgar, 2019, ISBN 9781786438867, 215pp Reviewed by: Major Cate Carter Military geography uses tools and techniques of the discipline of geography to solve military problems. In essence, it studies military operations through a geographic lens. As the editor of this volume, herself a leader in military geography, tells us, ‘military geographies invite study at scales from the global and international, through the national and regional, …

No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us   Written by: Rachel Louise Snyder Scribe, Melbourne, 2020, ISBN 9781925849820, viii+307pp Reviewed by: Chaplain Darren Cronshaw In the face of the reality and suffering of family and domestic violence (FDV), over the last decade Defence has increased support and referral services for those affected, and developed focused training for all members. As a chaplain, I am eager to understand the complex dynamics that trigger or allow FDV …

On Obedience: Contrasting Philosophies for the Military, Citizenry and Community   Written by: Pauline Shanks Kaurin Naval Institute Press, 2020, ISBN 9781682474914, 274pp. Reviewed by: Chaplain Nikki Coleman, PhD One of the central values of the military is that soldiers, sailors, airmen and women will obey all legal orders. Without obedience, it is argued, there will be chaos on the battlefield, and the good order and discipline of the military will be eroded to the point where it can no longer function. …

This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War against Reality   Written by: Peter Pomerantsev Faber, 2019, ISBN: 9780571338634, 300pp Reviewed by: Major Lee Hayward This is Not Propaganda is by no means an easy read. This is not because it is not well written but because Pomerantsev takes the reader on a difficult and confronting journey through a subject that has not really established itself in the Western consciousness. The subject is information warfare, and how effectively authoritarian figures are …

  Crumps and Camouflets: Australian Tunnelling Companies on the Western Front ,  Written by: Damien Finlayson,  Big Sky Publishing, Newport, 2010, ISBN 9780980658255, 480 pp   Reviewed by: Michael Molkentin In Australia during the two decades following the Great War, publication of ‘unit’ or ‘regimental’ histories was prolific. Typically written by battalion associations or ex-unit members possessing a literary flair, the genre was encouraged by funding from the Australian National Defence League and the …

  Anzac Fury: The Bloody Battle of Crete 1941 , Written by: Peter Thompson,  William Heinemann, Sydney, 2010, ISBN 9781741669206, 506 pp   Reviewed by: Eleanor Hancock, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales@ADFA The battle of Crete remains contested in historical studies of the Second World War. Was the German decision to wrest the island off the Allies a mistake? Was the German victory a pyrrhic victory as many have claimed? Did mistakes by the Allied defenders lose the …

  The Road to Singapore: The Myth of British Betrayal , Written by: Augustine Meaher IV, Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2010, ISBN 9781921509957, 243 pp, RRP AU$39.95   Reviewed by: John Connor Sometimes it takes an outsider to provide a clear-eyed interpretation of a controversial event in a nation’s history. In this book, Augustine Meaher IV—who, as his name suggests, is a larger-than-life military historian from Mobile, Alabama in America’s Deep South—provides a compelling analysis of why …

  The Media at War , Written by: Susan L Carruthers, Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, ISBN 9780230244573, 329 pp   Reviewed by: Cynthia Banham Susan Carruthers wrote the first edition of The Media at War in 2000—before 11 September 2001, the war on terrorism, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and before the advent of ‘new media’. Yet if one thing is clear from reading the updated version of her book, published eleven years later, it is that when it comes to the reporting of war, little if anything …

  When God Made Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq 1914–1921 ,  Written by: Charles Townshend,  Faber and Faber Ltd, London, 2010, ISBN: 9780571237197, 320 pp   Reviewed by: David Goyne, Strategic Policy Division, Department of Defence The British campaign in Mesopotamia in the First World War, climaxing with the siege and surrender of the British Imperial force at Kut, is generally held to be the nadir of generalship and the military art. The British commander at Kut, Major …

  Afgantsy: the Russians in Afghanistan 1979–89 , Written by: Rodric Braithwaite,  Profile Books, London, 2011,  ISBN 9781846680540, 448 pp   Reviewed by: Brigadier Richard Iron, British Army On 15 February 1989, General Gromov, the commander of the 40th Army, in his BTR command vehicle and carrying his Army’s banner, was the last man in the 40th Army to cross the Termez bridge back into the Soviet Union; thus ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that had lasted a little over nine years. Afgantsy is …