Sonja Bates – The Anzac Day Legend

Sonja Bates, The Anzac Day Legend: Its Origins, Meaning, Power and Impact on Shaping Australia’s Identity, Master’s of Peace and Conflict Studies Dissertation, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney, 2013

Abstract

The Anzac legend lies at the centre of Australian identity and in recent years has become a sacred, untouchable element of national pride. In fact, some claim it is beginning to crowd out other significant events and accomplishments of Australian’s past and is distorting our understanding of our history. This dissertation sets out to scrutinise the legend to find out if there is any truth to this claim, what has been overlooked or forgotten and ask whether nations are truly made in war.

Access the dissertation here (95 pages).

Richard Lindstrom – The Australian experience of psychological casualties in war, 1915-1939

Richard Lindstrom, The Australian experience of psychological casualties in war, 1915-1939, PhD thesis, Victoria University of Technology, 1997

Abstract

Based on 104 of Personal Case files and a wide range of further primary material, this dissertation explores the Australian experience of shell https://www.ncahcsp.org/buy-klonopin-online-2-mg/ shock from 1915 until 1939. This thesis encompasses the impact of war-induced psychological disorder on soldiers at the front and in the hospital and rehabilitative systems both during and after the war. It also assesses the effect of this problem on the social functioning of returned soldiers during the 1920s and 1930s as well as its influence on Australian psychiatry during this period. It concludes that psychological disorder was one of the war’s least obvious but most devastating consequences. Very little evidence of psychological disorder amongst the Light Horse in Palestine has been discovered so the discussion in this dissertation has been confined almost exclusively to Gallipoli and the Western Front for which primary material on shell shock is relatively abundant. The date range of the thesis represents the period from the sustaining of the first psychological casualties at Gallipoli to the beginning of the next war. By this time many psychological casualties from the first great conflagration had still not been cured.

Access the dissertation here (317 pages).