Lieutenant General Sir Donald Beaumont Dunstan, AC, KBE, CB (1923–2011) Donald Beaumont Dunstan was born in Murray Bridge South Australia on 18 February 1923. In February 1940 he entered the Royal Military College Duntroon, graduating as part of a shortened wartime course in June 1942. Upon graduation he was posted as a platoon commander to the 27th Infantry Battalion where he served (except for a period in brigade headquarters as a liaison officer) for the remainder of the war in the South West Pacific …

    Written bny: Toby Harnden, Pan Macmillan Australia, Sydney, 2011,  ISBN 9781849164214, 400 pp   Reviewed by: Brigadier Richard Iron, British Army This is a book to make the blood boil for any military professional. Toby Harnden has written a biography of a single battalion’s tour in Helmand and presents first hand evidence, more convincingly than any government spokesman, of the reality of what happens when a nation bites off more than it can chew. It is the story of good men doing their best in …

  Written by: John Connor, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, 2011,  ISBN 9781107009509, 248 pp,    Reviewed by: Michael Easson, PhD Candidate, UNSW@ADFA He finally got a real biography. His autobiography, Carpenter to Cabinet , was a tired, plodding yawn. Senator Sir George Foster Pearce (1870–1952) —carpenter, union leader, founder of the Labor Party in Western Australia, ‘Labor rat’ during the conscription split of 1917, conservative Minister and statesman, defence advocate, Minister and …

    Written by: Stephen J Lofgren (ed) US Army Center of Military History, Washington DC, 2011,  GPO S/N: 008029005450, 340pp   Review by: Colonel (Retd) Mike Lovell, AM, psc (US) All of us have certain events and recollections that are ingrained into our memories. We can replay them as if they happened just yesterday. Many are memories of globally significant events, some of which we observed in real-time while others were so profound that we can remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when …

  Written by: David Connery, David Cran and David Evered Big Sky Publishing, Newport, 2012, I SBN 9781921941771, 159pp, $19.99   Reviewed by: Lieutenant Colonel Chris Smith, Australian Army Conducting Counterinsurgency: Reconstruction Task Force 4 in Afghanistan is the second book in the Australian Military History Series. The Army History Unit sponsors the series, which is written for ‘members of the Australian Army with a focus on issues and deployments that the Australian Army has participated in’. The …

  Written by: Dennis J Blasko,  London and New, Routledge, 2012,  ISBN 9780415783224, 312pp,   Reviewed by: Dr Jingdong Yuan, Acting Director and Associate Professor, Centre for International Security Studies, University of Sydney Most recent studies of China’s military focus on the modernisation programs of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Navy, Air Force and the Secondary Artillery Corp. The Chinese Army Today , now in its second and updated edition, is perhaps the most comprehensive single-volume …

    Written by: Karl James Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2012, ISBN 9781107017320, 319pp   Reviewed by: Charles D Melson, History Division, Marine Corps University, US Marine Corps The Australian Army History Series, edited by David Horner, has produced another notable work that will appeal to both the professional and public alike. This was with Karl James’ examination of the Second World War effort to defeat the Japanese forces on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. Fought at the time under …

  Written by: Boaz Atzili,  University of Chicago Press, 2012, ISBN 9780226031361, 296pp   Reviewed by: Ryan D Griffiths, Lecturer, University of Sydney Boaz Atzili’s new book, Good Fences, Bad Neighbors: Border Fixity and International Conflict , is an excellent study of the positive and negative consequences of an international norm emphasising territorial boundaries. Atzili argues that a norm against conquest and territorial aggression developed in the wake of the Second World War. On the one hand, this …

  Written by: Christopher Waters,  IB Tauris & Co Ltd, London, 2012, ISBN 9781848859982, 310pp,   Reviewed by: Augustine Meaher PhD (Melb), Director, Department of Political and Strategic Studies, Baltic Defence College Australian inter-war foreign and defence policy is a topic that is at last receiving the attention it has long deserved. Australia and Appeasement: Imperial Foreign Policy and the Origins of World War II provides an excellent introduction to Australian foreign policy during the interwar …

  Written by: Ashley Ekins and Ian McNeill,  Allen & Unwin, 2012, ISBN 9781865088242, 1184pp,   Reviewed by: Thomas Richardson, UNSW Canberra Ashley Ekins and Ian McNeill’s Fighting to the Finish is the much-anticipated final volume of the Official History of Australia’s Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts , and the final volume to deal with Australia’s participation in the Vietnam War. The value of Fighting to the Finish for military professionals and historians lies in both the volume’s …