The Australian Army, and: The Royal Australian Air Force, and: The Royal Australian Navy, and: Making the Australian Defence Force, and: The Department of Defence, and: Australian Defence: Sources and Statistics, and: An Atlas of Australia's Wars (review)

Australia's historians do major national anniversaries and celebrations rather well. Their contribution to the bicentenary of white occupation of the continent in 1988, Australians: A Historical Library, was a ten-volume opportunity for good and popular history. The narrative technique was for a volume at each fifty-year stage of the two hundred years, concentrating steadily on that single year rather than looking about more generally.

Periodisation as rigid as this overlooked war. 1938 was a "slice" year when 1942 would have been a far more dramatic and interesting year to examine. The volume "From 1939" which broke the rigidity somewhat did look at the second world war from a war and society context but the series omitted the first world war entirely from its narrative volumes. You can imagine that Australian military historians chafed under this celebratory rigidity and it is hardly surprising that they were to the fore when discussion began about what contribution Australian historians would make to the centenary of federation celebrations, in effect marking the making of a nation.

Leadership from senior historians at the Australian Defence Force Academy saw the acceptance of The Australian Centenary History of Defence, not as war history only, but a comprehensive study of Defence in the story of Australia. As series editors Peter Dennis and John Coates point out: "defence of the nation is one of the fundamental obligations of government." In celebrating the centenary of federal government in Australia it was only sensible to concentrate on the defence force as a significant part of that story. So this seven-volume series of elegantly designed, pleasingly illustrated histories emerged as a major contribution to the centenary celebrations.

There is no striving for effect in this series. Each of the services receives its own volume; there is a study, too, of the organisational side of defence, the military-civilian interface; there is a volume of sources and statistics; and a military atlas. Straightforward and sensible. There is not too much straining for effect, either, in the choice of writers. Again the choices are sensible and straightforward.

Does all this sound too dull, too reliable? In a sense I suppose it might. It was unwise, I think, to ask Jeffrey Grey to gird his loins again to write about the Australian army. He might have said to the editors that there was little more he could add to what he had already said in numerous books around the same theme, such as his well-received A Military History of Australia. There is a tiredness of voice...