Anzac and Empire
George Foster Pearce and the Foundations of Australian Defence

The story behind the man central to how Australia planned for, and fought in, WWI.

John Connor (Author)

9781107009509, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 April 2011

248 pages, 13 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.7 cm, 0.52 kg

Anzac and Empire is the remarkable story of George Foster Pearce – a carpenter who became one Australia's most influential politicians, and the man central to how Australia planned for, and fought in, World War I. The nation's longest-serving defence minister – holding the portfolio before, during and after the Great War – Pearce saw no contradiction in being both a fierce Australian nationalist, and also a loyal subject of the British Empire.Anzac and Empire is the first full-length biography of this extraordinary Australian. Written by one of Australia's leading military historians, this book shows that to understand Australia in the Great War, you must understand the man behind it.

List of illustrations and tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. 'We, too, have hopes and ambitions', 1870–1909
2. Building the Framework, 1910–1913
3. War, 1914
4. 'One of the great battle stories of the British Empire', 1915
5. Conscription and the Labor Split, 1916
6. The disastrous department, 1917
7. 'Pearce is doomed!', 1918
8. London and Washington, 1919–1922
9. Rearmament, 1922–1952
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Military history [HBW]