Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War by Joan Beaumont

JUDGES' COMMENTS

This ambitiously successful history of Australia in the Great War constructs a series of dialogues: between the home front and the war; between the significance of battles at the time they were fought and how they came to be remembered by participants and by subsequent generations. It also looks at the official account of the war as an exercise in nation-building and the reality of its terrible impact, on those who experienced it as well as on post-war society.

Based on the official war records held in the National Archives and the Australian War Memorial and on the diaries, autobiographies and letters of AIF soldiers, this is a study in political, military and social history. Joan Beaumont tells a compelling story of initial bravery at Gallipoli, wavering morale in 1916 and a brave regrouping reflected in the great AIF campaigns of 1917-18. Beaumont has woven a compelling story of triumph and tragedy but above all, Broken Nation emphasises the almost incomprehensible human cost of this war.

What makes this book so outstanding is, first, the breadth of its scope. Broken Nation covers in great detail all the major political and military events — extending from 1914 to the Peace Conference of 1919, and beyond — and always seeks to locate them in relation to each other and within wider contemporary and post-War contexts. Second, this work is marked by highly perceptive arguments, for Beaumont never takes orthodox understandings about the war or the home front for granted. This is a book that readers will find absorbing, and challenging.