From Simpsonâs donkey and the Emu War to Vietnam and Ben Roberts-Smith, Australian military history is full of events that didnât happen the way most people think they did. In his inimitable style, award-winning author Mark Dapin sets the record straight.
Australia has many stories and statues âlest we forgetâ our military past. But from Simpsonâs donkey to Ben Roberts-Smith, our history is full
of events that didnât happen the way most people think they did.
The first Anzac Day, for example, was far from being a solemn march â it was a celebration where people dressed as cavemen and dinosaurs, among other things. And is it true that British officers callously dispatched Australian soldiers to their deaths in the Dardanelles, as weâve been told? Did we really hate the soldiers returning from Vietnam? Were the white-feather women of the First World War fact or fiction?
In his inimitable style, award-winning author and historian Mark Dapin sets the record straight, showing that the reality was often completely different from the myth â and that in celebrating the wrong people we often overlook the real heroes.
âWith Lest, Mark Dapin transforms his trademark humour into serious history ⊠It forces us to look again at stories we think we all know â
or should know â and reframe them with intellectual rectitude and rigour ⊠Lest offers new perspectives on the past from one of Australiaâs most interesting and provocative thinkers.â Clare Wright