Bill Gammage

William Leonard "Bill" Gammage AM, FASSA (born 1942) is an Australian academic historian, Adjunct Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University (ANU). He was born in Orange, New South Wales, went to Wagga Wagga High School and then to ANU.^[1] He was on the faculty of the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of Adelaide. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and deputy chair of the National Museum of Australia.

History studies

World War I

Gammage is best known for his book The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War,^[2] which is based on his PhD thesis written while at the Australian National University. It was first published in 1974, and re-printed in 1975, 1980, 1981 (the year in which Peter Weir's film, Gallipoli came out), 1985 and 1990. The study revives the tradition of C.E.W. Bean, Australia's official historian of World War I, who focused his narrative on the men in the line rather than the strategies of generals. Gammage corresponded with 272 Great War veterans, and consulted the personal records of another 728, mostly at the Australian War Memorial.

He has written several other books about the experiences of soldiers in World War I, including three definitive books about Australian soldiers in the war. He also co-edited the Australians 1938 volume of the Bicentennial History of Australia (1988).

Aboriginal peoples planning and management of Australia

In 1998, Gammage joined the Humanities Research Centre at the ANU as a senior research fellow for the Australian Research Council, working on the history of Aboriginal land management.^[3] His scope was cross-disciplinary, working "across fields as disparate as history, anthropology and botany".^[3]

In the subsequent 13-year period he researched and wrote the book The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia,^[4] released in October 2011. It won the 2012 Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History in the Prime Minister's Literary Awards,^[2][5] the 2011 Manning Clark House National Cultural Awards in the individual category, was shortlisted for the 2012 Kay Daniels Award,^[6] the History Book Award of the 2012 Queensland Literary Awards^[7] and awarded the 2012 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards overall Victorian Prize for Literature on top of the non-fiction category prize.^[8][9]

Gallipoli

As a historical adviser, Gammage has worked on many documentaries and his writing is cited as an authoritative source on Australia's participation in World War I.^[10] For the film Gallipoli directed by Peter Weir, Gammage was employed as the military advisor^[11] and he worked on the text that David Williamson turned into the screen play of the film.

Local history of Narrandera

Gammage produced a historical study of the Shire of Narrandera.^[12] Gammage was made a freeman of Narrandera Shire Council in 1987.^[1]

Adelaide ANZAC Day commentary

He was part of the Australian Broadcasting Commission Adelaide ANZAC Day Commemorative March commentary team until 2015.

Awards and nominations

• 1988 – ABC/ABA Manning Clark Bicentennial History Award, for his book Narrandera Shire
• 1999 – Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, History Book Award for The Sky Travellers: Journeys in New Guinea 1938–39^[13]
• 1999 – shortlisted in the New South Wales Premier's History Awards for The Sky Travellers: Journeys in New Guinea 1938–39
• 2005 – Member of the Order of Australia (AM)^[14]
• 2011 – Manning Clark House National Cultural Award winner for The Biggest Estate on Earth
• 2012 – Prime Minister's Literary Awards, Prize for Australian History for The Biggest Estate on Earth^[2][5]
• 2012 – shortlisted for the Kay Daniels Award^[6]
• 2012 – Queensland Literary Awards, History Book Award^[7]
• 2012 – Victorian Premier's Literary Awards overall Victorian Prize for Literature on top of the non-fiction category prize^[8][9]

Publications

Books

• The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War. Australia: Penguin. 1974. ISBN 0-85179-699-0. 
• with: Harris, David; Cole, Michael; Piggott, Reg (1976). An Australian in the First World War. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-21018-6. 
• Man and land: some remarks on European ideas and the Australian environment. Publication no. 64 (booklet). Stirling memorial lecture; (no. 4. Broadcast from Radio 5UV, the University of Adelaide on 13 December 1978). Adelaide, South Australia: Dept. of Continuing Education, University of Adelaide. 1979. ISBN 978-0-85578-017-3. 
• with: Williamson, David (1981). The Story of Gallipoli. Ringwood, Vic: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-006105-3. 
• with: Markus, Andrew (1982). All that dirt : aborigines 1938. Canberra: History Project, Inc., Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. ISBN 0-949776-08-4. 
• Narrandera Shire. Narrandera: Bill Gammage for the Narrandera Shire Council. 1986. OCLC 63179965. 
• with: Spearritt, Peter (1987). Australians, 1938. New York: Broadway; Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates. ISBN 0-949288-21-7. 
• Headon, David John; Warden, James; Gammage, Bill (1994). Crown or country : the traditions of Australian republicanism. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86373-599-2. 
• The Sky Travellers: Journeys in New Guinea 1938–1939. Melbourne: Melbourne University. 1998. ISBN 0-522-84827-3. 
• Australia under Aboriginal management (booklet). Barry Andrews memorial lecture. 15. Canberra, ACT: School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University College, University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy – "in association with the Barry Andrews Memorial Trust and the National Library of Australia". 2003. ISBN 978-0-73170-388-3. 
• The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Crows Nest, N.S.W: Allen & Unwin (online page). October 2011. ISBN 978-1-74237-748-3. Retrieved 2011-10-12.  External link in |publisher= (help) Interview about the book, 2011 Oct 11.

Journal articles

• "The Rabaul strike, 1929∗". The Journal of Pacific History. 10 (3): 3–29. 1975. ISSN 0022-3344. doi:10.1080/00223347508572276. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "Early boundaries of New South Wales". Historical Studies. 19 (77): 524–531. 1981. ISSN 0018-2559. doi:10.1080/10314618108595657. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "My Country of the Pelican Dreaming [Book Review]". Aboriginal History. 7: 195. 1983. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "Historical reconsiderations VIII: Who gained, and who was meant to gain, from land selection in New South Wales?". Australian Historical Studies. 24 (94): 104–122. 1990. ISSN 1031-461X. doi:10.1080/10314619008595834. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "Open and closed historiographies". Australian Historical Studies. 24 (96): 443–446. 1991. ISSN 1031-461X. doi:10.1080/10314619108595859. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• (1991) ANZAC's influence on Turkey and Australia. Journal of the Australian War Memorial 18; Presented as a keynote address at the 1990 Australian War Memorial history conference
• "Police and power in the pre‐war Papua New Guinea highlands". The Journal of Pacific History. 31 (2): 162–177. 1996. ISSN 0022-3344. doi:10.1080/00223349608572816. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "John Black's ‘Anatomy of a hanging: Malignant homicidal sorcery in the upper Markham valley, New Guinea. An exploratory enquiry’". The Journal of Pacific History. 33 (2): 225–234. 1998. ISSN 0022-3344. doi:10.1080/00223349808572872. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "My Gun, My Brother. the World of the Papua New Guinea Colonial Police 1920–1960 [Book Review]", Oceania (book review)|format= requires |url= (help), 70 (2): 193–, December 1999, ISSN 0029-8077  |access-date= requires |url= (help)

• "'…far more happier than we Europeans': Aborigines and farmers" (PDF). London Papers in Australian Studies (formerly Working Papers in Australian Studies). London: Menzies Centre for Australian Studies. King's College. Each year the Centre publishes London Papers in Australian Studies . These are representative of some of the most recent and exciting intellectual work in Australian Studies (12): 1–27. 2005. ISSN 1746-1774. OCLC: 137333394. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 30 December 2012.  External link in |journal= (help)

• "Desert Gardens: Waterless lands and the problems of adaptation, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 29, 30, and 31 March 2005". Australian Humanities Review: Ecological Humanities (section). Canberra, ACT: ANU E Press. 36. July 2005. ISSN 1325-8338. Retrieved 30 December 2012.  |contribution= ignored (help)

• "Sorcery in New Guinea, 1938 and 1988∗". The Journal of Pacific History. 41 (1): 87–96. 2006. ISSN 0022-3344. doi:10.1080/00223340600652458. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "The Anzac cemetery". Australian Historical Studies. 38 (129): 124–140. 2007. ISSN 1031-461X. doi:10.1080/10314610708601235. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "Plain facts: Tasmania under Aboriginal management". Landscape Research. 33 (2): 241–254. 2008. ISSN 0142-6397. doi:10.1080/01426390701767278. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "Galahs". Australian Historical Studies. 40 (3): 275–293. 2009. ISSN 1031-461X. doi:10.1080/10314610903067094. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "Fire in 1788: The Closest Ally". Australian Historical Studies. 42 (2): 277–288. June 2011. ISSN 1031-461X. doi:10.1080/1031461X.2011.566273. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "Victorian landscapes in 1788". Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes. 31 (2): 83–87. June 2011. ISSN 1460-1176. doi:10.1080/14601176.2011.556367. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "Aboriginal Dreaming paths and trading routes: the colonisation of the Australian economic landscape – By Dale Kerwin [Book Review]". The Economic History Review. 64 (4): 1419–1420. October 2011. ISSN 1468-0289. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.2011.00611_29.x. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

• "Gavamani: the Magisterial Service of British New Guinea. By James Sinclair [Book Review]". The Journal of Pacific History. 47 (1): 141–142. 2012. ISSN 0022-3344. doi:10.1080/00223344.2012.649900. Retrieved 5 July 2012. 

Book chapters

• — "Oral and Written Sources." In Oral Tradition in Melanesia. Ed. by Donald Denoon. Port Moresby, New Guinea: University of Papua, New Guinea and Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. pp. 115–24.
• — (1994). "Sustainable damage: the environment and the future". In Dovers, Stephen. Australian environmental history: essays and cases. Melbourne; New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 258–267. ISBN 0195534824. Lay summary. 
• — (2006). "Landscapes transformed". In Lake, Marilyn. Memory, monuments and museums: the past in the present. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press in association with the Australian Academy of the Humanities. pp. 153–165, 270–273. ISBN 9780522852509. Retrieved 2012-11-30. Lay summary. 

Other work

• "Sir John Monash : a military review" (Melbourne University, 1974)
• "The story of Gallipoli" / text by Bill Gammage ; screenplay by David Williamson ; preface by Peter Weir. Ringwood, Vic. : Penguin Australia 1981) Released August 1981 as "Gallipoli.", dir. by Peter Weir
• "The Achievement of the Australian Aborigines", The Australian and New Zealand Studies Project (Text of an Australian and New Zealand Studies Occasional Lecture given at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on Wednesday, 9 December 1992)|format= requires |url= (help), Occasional paper no.1, Manoa, Honolulu: School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii, 1992, p. 9 

Notes

External links

• Australia in World War One, by Dr Peter Stanley
• The Sports Factor interview with Bill Gammage on ABC Radio