Australia In World War Research Articles

Australian Seventh‐day Adventism and World War One: A Different Path

The Seventh‐day Adventist (SDA) church in Australia differed from most Christian churches in its response to World War One, openly condemning the war as an evil to be avoided while attempting to remain focused on its evangelistic mission. This article explores the philosophy of the SDAs that allowed them to stand apart from the bulk of the churches, and the evolving nuanced path forward negotiated between the ideals of the church and the needs of the government. The success of the SDA church in maintaining its spiritual focus broadens our understanding of the relationship between churches and state in Australia in World War One, and adds a level of subtlety in understanding the government's response to a church that had an ambivalent response to the state's war goals.

The politics of heroism: propaganda and military celebrity in First World War Australia

Afghanistan veteran Ben Roberts-Smith is one of the most well-known faces of modern conflict in Australia. The decorated special forces soldier is frequently at the forefront of commemorative initiatives, has become a spokesman for health and sport, and is popularly portrayed as the embodiment of the modern ‘Anzac’. But Roberts-Smith’s social currency as a hero is not a recent phenomenon.

Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia: Hallelujah under the Southern Cross

Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia is a welcome addition to the published resources on Methodism in the South Pacific. In this 242-page hardcover, Glen O'Brien explores the arrival of Holiness denominations in Australia that arose out of American Methodist and Pentecostal heritage in the twentieth century. He provides a much-needed overview of four groups in particular: the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Church of the Nazarene, the Church of God (Anderson), and the Church of God (Cleveland). O'Brien's historical summary feeds into analytical and philosophical discussions about the groups' distinctives and practices. The writing style is easy-reading, while the conclusions are meaningful and thought-provoking.There has been a noticeable lack of Methodist historical publications emanating from Australia, New Zealand, and the island-nations of the South Pacific since the early twentieth century, with only a handful of publications specifically addressing the reasons for mainline Methodism's declining vitality. O'Brien's work as co-editor and contributor to Methodism in Australia: A History (2015) and this more recent publication, Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia (2018), has been a real service to both academic and private readership. The material covered in this current volume has been largely available within the specific denominational circles, but not easily accessible to wider readership. O'Brien's research draws these records together in a format that will aid the broader Holiness-Methodist-Pentecostal readership to understand each other better and to discover a shared history. An example of these ‘missing links’ can be seen in O'Brien's reference to Doug and Maysie Pinch (index, 241). Pinch's ministry in the Wesleyan Methodist Church from 1964 to 1978 has been covered in other sources, but O'Brien references his ministry with the Nazarenes from 1946 to 1963 (84) and with the Church of God (Anderson) for many years (167).1 This topic of movement between the Wesleyan-Holiness denominations is not often explored, though it has been a fairly common phenomenon.While these historical details are of special interest to denominational readers, O'Brien's broader commentary and discussion of social and church growth dynamics render his book useful to a global audience. His discussion of the interface between Holiness and Pentecostal denominations is tantalizing and his reference to anti-American sentiment in post–Second World War Australia delves into a topic that other nations may have similarly encountered. I was personally drawn to O'Brien's conclusion that if the American Holiness denominations had come to Australia in the 1920s rather than the post-War 1940s, they ‘may have been able to capitalize on what was left of the Methodist interest in holiness and of the Keswick Convention movement’ (75). Of course, as O'Brien has noted, there were some attempts in these earlier decades (chapter 3). Perhaps the outcome of A. B. Carson's ministry (68–71) might suggest that, while Australia may have been open to holiness teaching in the 1920s, the cultural legalism of American teaching still overshadowed the holiness message and was not appealing to the Australian market. It would be interesting to further explore this thesis in light of the impact of Howard Guinness's visits in the 1920s and 1930s with Inter-Varsity Fellowship and the Evangelical Union. Guinness promoted a strong holiness message, and his ministry created a lasting impact, for better or for worse.In summary, I have found O'Brien's work, Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia, thoughtful, informative, and credible. I recommend it to other students of church history and to any who would seek to better understand the differences and commonalities within the Methodist-Holiness-Pentecostal families. I congratulate Glen O'Brien for his efforts in producing such a useful publication.

The skin of commerce: governing through plastic food packaging

ABSTRACTIs it possible to say that we have become governed by plastic? This paper uses the introduction of plastic packaging into food markets in the post-Second World War Australia to pursue this question. This empirical foray is informed by recent debates about the ‘government of things’ and explorations about how political and ontological processes interact. Making plastic packaging into a mundane market device involved the development of accountability relations that established the ‘responsibilities’ of the package: what it was obliged to do across various networks from production to self-service. Equally important were processes that attached consumers to this new material and provoked changed practices. This history shows how the normalisation of plastic packaging changed the ontological status of food in markets. Plastic provided a new point of articulation between the natural and the synthetic in relation to governing the life of food that also conditioned the governance of consumers: convincing them that food wrapped in plastic was better across numerous registers. What the case of mundane plastic packaging shows is that ‘government’ does not exist first and enrol technologies to achieve its aims. Rather, that devices and technologies can become capable of introducing new conducts into markets and everyday life.

Australian rock ’n’ roll gear: From the pubs to museum collections

Abstract In post-Second World War Australia rock n roll music became a significant expression of youth culture, art, rebellion, entertainment and also an area of employment. The technology that enabled the music – particularly the instruments and amplification – required capital investment to obtain it and expertise to maintain it. The leaders of this product market were in the United States and the United Kingdom, and use of this technology required adaptation and substantial capital outlay. Because of voltage compliance issues, scarcity of overseas products and to defray costs, Australian manufacturers and technical experts used the templates created by overseas makers and developed their own products. Two important examples of these are part of the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences: the Wasp amplifier cabinet (used by Deniz Tek of Radio Birdman) and the Maton guitar (used by Harry Vanda of The Easybeats). The Wasp amplifier – along with several other Australian-made amplifiers – developed and survived only in the local rock n roll industry, and were early casualties of globalization. Maton guitars survived and are a significant maker of guitars internationally. The stories of these objects – specifically and more broadly – are examples of artistic and technical, yet also unplanned invention. They are also an important, though not often celebrated, part of why Australian rock music in the 1970s and 1980s was a cultural phenomenon. This article will examine through primary sources and scholarly texts why one product disappeared from the market, while another survived; and where these objects sit in a popular culture museum collection.

Tom Barker’s ‘To Arms!’ poster: internationalism and resistance in First World War Australia

Tom Barker’s ‘To Arms!’ poster: internationalism and resistance in First World War Australia

Australian Generations? Memory, Oral History and Generational Identity in Postwar Australia

Australian media pundits and popular sociologists write blithely about generations such as the Baby Boomers and Gen X, but what they are really writing about are birth cohorts who share some common life experiences and attitudes but do not necessarily share a generational identity. Drawing upon oral history interviews conducted with 300 Australians, this article argues that while a birth cohort may share historical reference points, it will not necessarily be conscious of itself as a distinctive generation. Generations are forged by dramatic shared experiences and emergent generational awareness in youth. Generational self-consciousness is then fashioned and consolidated in memory by individuals who draw upon collective representations of generational identity in making sense of their lives. This article argues that in post-Second World War Australia there has, thus far, been only one such generation, the so-called ‘60s generation’, and illuminates that argument though a life history case study that also highlights the significance of gender and intergenerational relations.

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this issue.Jews, Christians and the Abode of Islam: Modern Scholarship, Medieval Realities. By Jacob LassnerFlood Country: An Environmental History of the Murray‐Darling Basin. By Emily O'GormanRoving Mariners: Australian Aboriginal Whalers and Sealers in the Southern Ocean, 1790–1870. By Lynette RussellPhillip Parker King 1791– 1856: A Most Admirable Australian. By Brian Douglas Abbott, with a Foreword by Paul BruntonMen and Manliness on the Frontier: Queensland and British Columbia in the Mid‐Nineteenth Century. By Robert HoggLarrikins: A History. By Melissa BellantaIn the Shadow of Gallipoli: The Hidden History of Australia in World War I. By Robert BollardKitty's War: The Remarkable Wartime Experiences of Kit McNaughton. By Janet ButlerAustralia and the World Crisis, 1914–1923: Volume 2: A History of Australian Defence and Foreign Policy. By Neville MeaneyLooking After One's Own: The Rise of Nationalism and the Politics of the Neuendettelsauer Mission in Australia, New Guinea and Germany (1921–1933). By Christine WinterW. Macmahon Ball: Politics for the People. By Ai KobayashiImmigrants Turned Activists: Italians in 1970s Melbourne. By Simone BattistonAustralia and the United Nations. Edited by James Cotton and David LeeTransforming a “White Australia”: Issues of Racism and Immigration. By Laksiri JayasuriyaAustralia's Asia: from Yellow Peril to Asian Century. Edited by David Walker and Agnieszka SobocinskaRoddy's Folly: R. P. Meagher QC – Art Lover and Lawyer. By Damien FreemanMiddle Power Dreaming: Australia in World Affairs, 2006–2010. Edited by James Cotton and John RavenhillInclusive Growth in Australia: Social Policy as Economic Investment. Edited by Paul Smyth and John BuchananViolent Victorians. Popular Entertainment in Nineteenth‐Century London. By Rosalind CroneIndia and the British Empire: Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series. Edited by Douglas M. Peers and Nandini GooptuThe Colonisation of Time: Ritual, Routine and Resistance in the British Empire. By Giordano NanniG.K. Chesterton: A Biography. By Ian KerThe Crisis of Theory. E.P. Thompson, the New Left and Postwar British Politics. By Scott HamiltonThe Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History. Edited by Dan StoneMoscow, 1937. By Karl Schlögel, translated by Rodney LivingstoneIt Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway. Russia and the Communist Past. By David SatterThe Wind from the East: French Intellectuals, The Cultural Revolution, and the Legacy of the 1960s. By Richard WolinWood: A History. By Joachim Radkau, trans. Patrick CamillerThe Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War. By James Q. WhitmanEgypt and the Origin of Civilization: The British School of Culture Diffusion, 1890s–1940s. By Joshua Smith

Citizenship, Rights and Emergency Powers in Second World War Australia

In times of war or the threat of war there is a heightened tension between individual rights on the one hand and public safety and the protection of the community on the other. This situation is again facing the democracies at the present time. One aspect of the way tension between these two principles affected the citizenship status and civil rights of certain individuals in Second World War Australia is examined in this article. It focuses on Australian citizens who were deprived of their liberty and interned without trial, for periods varying from a few months to a number of years. In seeking explanations for the denial of one of the basic civil rights of a section of the Australian community, this article examines some formal constructions of nationality, and considers the implications of these constructions for citizenship and civil rights in wartime Australia.1

Passengers of Memory: Constructions of British Immigrants in Post-Imperial Australia

Based on broad research investigating British immigrants in post-Second World War Australia, this article examines various impacts of the passing of imperialism on this group, tracing how they have been “passengers” both of national memory in Australia and more recently of their own narratives. Arguing also that British migrants have been subject on occasion to postimperial forgetting, it is emphasised here that British migrants display heterogenous constructions and negotiations of identity that may reflect new departures.

The dark shadow of white Australia: Racial anxieties in Australia in World War II

Abstract Although World War II was perceived as a race war, historical attention has almost exclusively been focused upon the Axis powers’ racial conceptualizations. Little scholarly research has been directed towards investigating the Allies’ internal racial attitudes and policies. Building upon long‐standing formulations that emerged from the process of colonial conquest, the rhetoric of racism in Australia was recast and expanded in order to address the unprecedented crisis of the war in the Pacific. Aboriginal people were thus portrayed as potential collaborators who would aid the invading Japanese; enemy aliens, most particularly the Italians, the Japanese and the Germans become sinister fifth columnists. Lastly, the introduction of large numbers of black GIs among the American forces challenged notions of racial and sexual purity. Australians were ultimately fighting to preserve a white British‐derived nation. The ‘race war’ on the Pacific frontline intensified racial awareness and allowed hysterica...

Farmers and the rural vote in South Australia in World War I: The 1916 conscription referendum∗

Farmers and the rural vote in South Australia in World War I: The 1916 conscription referendum∗

Some Recent Australian Writing on Immigration and Assimilation

Since the end of the Second World War Australia has experienced large-scale, sustained immigration which has significantly increased the ethnic heterogeneity of the society in which some one in four of the total population are now either post-war immigrants or their Australian-born children. Given the size and varied nature of this immigration it is scarcely surprising that it has attracted much speculation and research. Rather than attempting to cover all the material this article concen? trates on the more accessible material, particularly that published since 1970, which incorporates the results of the author's research. This selectivity is made possible by the availability of the first two in a series of bibliographies edited by Charles Price.l Apart from providing detailed coverage of post-war and selected pre-war writings on immigration, the bibliographies provide details of ongoing research and excellent intro? ductory essays. In the first bibliography Price examines the range of concepts and theories which have been developed in Australia and elsewhere to explain the nature of immigrant assimilation.2 In the second bibliography the essays include one in which Price discusses the trends in post-war immigrations,3 Burnley surveys the material relating to various aspects of the adjustment of Northern and Southern European migrants in Australia,4 while Kunz does the same for material on refugees and Eastern Europeans.5 A final essay by Burnley discusses the material relating to New Zealand immigration which is included in the second bibliography.6

Land Settlement in Queensland: A Review

T is gratifying to note that in the period reconstruction and redeployment following the Second World War Australia is not incautiously urging the settlement its empty spaces. The boosters are at it again, to be sure; but this time curbs on their exuberance are not limited to mere handful scientists crying in the wilderness. In the interval between wars Australia has become better informed about the limitations the outback, and this is true both officialdom and the lay public. The reasons? Bitter memories the I920'S and I930's, for one thing. Wider dissemination information about the unoccupied or loosely occupied parts the country, for another. And probably also growing awareness that there is no easy or one track road to national welfare and national security. Government documents, books, magazine articles, newspaper comments, and radio speeches all bear witness to the changing attitude. In illustration we shall here discuss some recent publications in the first category. They relate to Queensland, but in concept and method theyare applicable to other parts the continent. In 1944, Queensland created Bureau Investigation charged with continuously investigating and classifying the state's land and water resources, making recommendations for their development, and reporting on progress. A first technical report deals with the Channel Country the southwest comer the state,' comprising the anastomosed parts the flood plains the Mulligan, Georgina, Diamantina, and Bulloo Rivers and Cooper's Creek, a remarkable natural fattening paddock from which some the finest-quality meat in Australia has been produced. Its development has been handicapped by irregularity seasons and lack transport. Pasturage is dependent on the annual floods, and of the 57 years since 1892, 22 years have given floods so small as to be almost useless ... Five floods have completely inundated the whole flood plain . . . [and] during eight other years ... substantial portion the higher levels the flood plain. The map transportation in eastern Australia from the summary report2 (Fig. I is drawn from it) enables one to appreciate the second handicap. Cattle to be fattened come to the Channel Country from the Northern Territory and northern Queensland; they are sent to the southern states. The distances are great. The general economic setting the Channel Country is shown on the maps land use, actual and potential, accompanying the Fifth Annual Report the Bureau Investigation.3 The maps are in color, on the scale 60 miles to the inch, and they reveal with admirable clarity the essentially pastoral character the state-the narrow, interrupted belt cultivation along the east coast; the broad sheep area roughly between the 5and 20-inch rainfall lines; and the cattle country to the east, north, and south.