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Spirit of the Digger Written by: Patrick Lindsay, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2003, ISBN: 9780732292751, 293pp. Reviewed by: Brigadier John Essex-Clark (Retd) Patrick Lindsay, who also wrote The Spirit of Kokoda , now gives us this 293-page exposition of the quality and character of Australian servicemen by a carefully selected use of lucid anecdotal cameos from the Boer War to Iraq in order to illustrate the qualities of the Digger which, as he describes, are no more than the essence of Australianism. …
The Third Force: ANGAU’s New Guinea War 1942–46 Written by: Alan Powell, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2003, ISBN: 9780195516395, 292pp. Reviewed by: Michael O’Connor Arguably, the most ubiquitous and perhaps the most neglected unit of the Australian Army in World War II’s New Guinea campaigns was the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU). The Army History Unit deserves commendation for sponsoring this excellent history of ANGAU just at a time when the need for a civil affairs …
Living by the Sword? The Ethics of Armed Intervention Written by: Tom Frame, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2004, ISBN: 9780868405193, 278pp. Reviewed by: Christian Enemark, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus admonished his disciple Peter: ‘All who live by the sword will die by the sword’. For centuries, theologians have debated what Jesus really meant by this statement in order to determine the moral status of those who engage in armed …
Globalisation and the New Terror: The Asia Pacific Dimension Written by: David Martin Jones (ed.), Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK,2004, ISBN: 9781845427771, xv + 316pp. Reviewed by: Michael Evans, Head of the Land Warfare Studies Centre and coeditor of the AAJ. The study of terrorism is a field that often lends itself to sensationalism and instant books based on breathless narrative and journalistic impression. None of these features characterises Globalisation and the New Terror . On the contrary, the …
Future Armies, Future Challenges: Land Warfare in the Information Age Written by: Michael Evans, Russell Parkin and Alan Ryan (eds), Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2004, paperback, ISBN: 9781865086262, 370pp. Reviewed by: Professor Jeffrey Grey, University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. There is an art to editing conference proceedings, which too often when published are less than the sum of their parts. They often date quickly, and it seems strange that, in the era of the Internet, …
Surprise, Security and the American Experience Written by: John Lewis Gaddis, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004, ISBN: 9780674011748, 150pp. Reviewed by: Russell Parkin, Senior Research Fellow at the Land Warfare Studies Centre and coeditor of the AAJ. At the end of the Cold War, the American scholar, Walter Russell Meade, wrote a book entitled Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World . A key thesis of Meade’s book was based on the identification of four …
Stray Voltage: War in the Information Age Written by: Wayne Michael Hall, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2003, ISBN: 9781591143505, 219pp. Reviewed by: Michael Evans, Head of the Land Warfare Studies Centre and coeditor of the AAJ. In this interesting and stimulating study, author Wayne Michael Hall—a retired American brigadier general who directed the US Army’s Intelligence XXI study—argues that, because of the ascent of the digital age, the face of battle is rapidly changing. Increasingly, the …
Field Artillery and Firepower Written by: Major General J. B. A. Bailey, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2004, ISBN: 9781591140290, 633pp. Reviewed by: Michael Evans, Head of the Land Warfare Studies Centre and coeditor of the AAJ. When this book was first published in 1989 by the then Major Jonathan Bailey of the Royal Artillery, it rapidly became known as the best single source on field artillery in the English language. Bailey’s brilliant study did for field artillery what Richard Simpkin’s work …
The Fragile Forts: The Fixed Defences of Sydney Harbour 1788–1963 Written by Peter Oppenheim, Australian Military History Publications, Loftus, New South Wales, 2005, 326pp. Reviewed by: Colonel Terry McCullagh, CSC, President, Royal Australian Artillery Association (ACT) The Fragile Forts is a joint publishing venture between the Australian Army History Unit and Australian Military History Publications and makes a valuable contribution to the rich history of the Sydney Harbour’s fixed defences. The …
Two Perspectives on a Trouble Future Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan Written by: Michael Ignatieff, Vintage Random House, London, 2003, ISBN: 9780099455431, 134pp. Another Century of War? Written by: Gabriel Kolko, The New Press, New York, 2002, ISBN: 9781565847583, 165pp. Reviewed by: Russell Parkin, Senior Research Fellow at the Land Warfare Studies Centre and co-editor of the AAJ In his essay An Agenda for the 21st Century (1987), the leading Mexican writer Carlos …
