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| Australasian Military History Association | |
|---|---|
| Name | Australasian Military History Association |
| Type | Scholarly association |
| Founded | 1970s |
| Headquarters | Australia |
| Region | Australasia |
Australasian Military History Association is a regional scholarly association dedicated to promoting study of Australasian military past, fostering research, and disseminating scholarship. It connects historians, curators, veterans, archivists, and students across Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and the Pacific, providing forums for debate on campaigns, personalities, institutions, and material culture. The association engages with collections, archives, and memorials while convening conferences, publishing monographs, and administering prizes.
The association emerged in the wake of renewed interest following the Gallipoli Campaign, Battle of the Somme, Western Front (World War I), World War II Pacific theatre, and comparative studies of Boer War, Kokoda Track campaign, Vietnam War, Korean War, and Malayan Emergency. Founders included scholars influenced by work on Edward Gibbon, Basil Liddell Hart, John Keegan, Sir Charles Bean, and regional historians of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Samoa. Early activities related to collections at the Australian War Memorial, National Museum of Australia, Auckland War Memorial Museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, Imperial War Museum, National Archives of Australia, and Archives New Zealand. The association has recorded responses to campaigns such as Battle of Britain, Siege of Tobruk, Battle of Crete, Battle of Milne Bay, Battle of Imphal, and operations like Operation Overlord and Operation Market Garden from an Australasian perspective. Historiographical debates engaged figures associated with Thucydides, Carl von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, H. P. Willmott, Antony Beevor, Gerhard Weinberg, Richard Holmes, and Margaret MacMillan.
The association advances objectives aligned with scholarship on leaders and formations including John Monash, Sir William Slim, Sir Thomas Blamey, Sir Archibald Wavell, General Douglas MacArthur, General Bernard Montgomery, and Admiral Arthur Phillip. It promotes study of campaigns such as Anzac Campaign, Gallipoli Campaign, Battle of Fromelles, Battle of Pozieres, Battle of Passchendaele, Kokoda Track campaign, Battle of Buna–Gona, Timor campaign, and Pacific Islands Campaign. Goals include preserving records from institutions like the Australian War Memorial, Auckland War Memorial Museum, Australian National Maritime Museum, and supporting archives such as the National Archives of Australia and Archives New Zealand, and engaging museums like Australian National Maritime Museum and National Museum of the Pacific War.
The association publishes journals, monographs, and bibliographies referencing works on topics from Gallipoli to Guadalcanal, citing scholarship by Gerald Brennan, Peter Pedersen, Robert O’Neill (historian), Ashley Ekins, David Horner, Ewen Southby-Tailyour, Paul Kennedy, and James Holland. Publications survey campaigns including Somme, Ypres, El Alamein, Kasserine Pass, Iwo Jima, Leyte Gulf, Coral Sea, and Midway, while documenting personnel records like those of ANZAC, Australian Imperial Force, NZEF, Royal Australian Navy, Royal New Zealand Navy, Royal Australian Air Force, and Royal New Zealand Air Force. Resources link to primary materials in collections such as the Imperial War Museum, State Library of New South Wales, State Library of Victoria, Public Record Office Victoria, National Library of Australia, Alexander Turnbull Library, Mitchell Library, and specialist repositories like the Australian War Graves Photographic Project.
Annual conferences bring together presenters on topics from the Crimean War and Russo-Japanese War to Cold War studies, featuring talks on personalities like Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth, Francis Rawdon Chesney, Charles Darwin (as observer of naval practices), Tommy Atkins (soldier archetype), and case studies of HMAS Sydney (II), HMAS Perth (D29), HMS Prince of Wales, USS Enterprise (CV-6), USS Lexington (CV-2), and HMAS Canberra (D33). The association runs symposia, workshops, and seminars in partnership with University of Melbourne, Australian National University, University of Sydney, University of Auckland, Victoria University of Wellington, Monash University, Deakin University, University of New South Wales, and specialist centres such as the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Membership comprises academics, curators, veterans, students, and independent researchers associated with organisations like Royal United Services Institute, Australian War Memorial Research Centre, New Zealand Defence Force Museum, Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Foundation, and historical societies such as the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and the Historical Society of New South Wales. Governance typically features an executive committee with roles comparable to those in university departments and cultural institutions: president, secretary, treasurer, and editorial board members drawn from University of New England (Australia), Flinders University, Griffith University, James Cook University, and La Trobe University.
The association administers prizes and fellowships recognizing scholarship on campaigns, biographies, and operational studies, akin to awards such as the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History, FAW Bradley Prize, and institutional grants from bodies like the Australian Research Council, Marsden Fund, Humanities Research Centre, and professional honours including the Order of Australia for service to historiography. It also sponsors best-paper awards at conferences and book prizes that celebrate works on subjects including Anzac, Kokoda, Gallipoli, Bullecourt, Beersheba, and biographies of figures such as Albert Jacka, John Simpson Kirkpatrick, Charles Upham, and Nancy Wake.
Partnerships extend to museums, archives, universities, veteran organisations, and international bodies such as the Imperial War Museums, National WWII Museum (New Orleans), Australian War Memorial, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, United Service Institution of India, and scholarly publishers like Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, and ANU Press. Outreach programs collaborate with schools, veteran groups like the Returned and Services League of Australia, commemorative bodies such as Memorial Day observances, and heritage agencies involved with sites like the Villiers-Bretonneux Memorial, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Canberra), and battlefield conservation projects in collaboration with local councils and national trusts.
Category:Historical societies Category:Military history organizations Category:Australia–New Zealand relations