If you're in Canberra this weekend, I can confirm that Lifeline Bookfair is, once again, awesome! Go there!! www.lifelinecanberra.org.au/books/bookfa...

CLOSING NEXT WEEK - submit your entry by Tuesday 30 September to be in the running for the Ken Inglis Postgraduate Prize. Did you present a paper at the AHA conference in July? Email it to us: [email protected] See the pinned post for more details.

This paperweight, made of Haematite carved in shape of a grasshopper. But it was hand-carved between 1800-1700 BC in ancient Babylonia (modern-day Iraq). It served as a functional weight and also showcases the artistic skill of Babylonian artisans.  British Museum #archaeohistories

More HMAS Australia (II) posting by me... #OTD 85 years ago, Operation Menace began off the west coast of Africa. www.awm.gov.au/articles/blo...

I've always found this "wine-dark sea" debate fascinating. Couldn't the archaic Greeks see blue? An old article, but probably the best take I've seen on it: www.abc.net.au/listen/radio...

London museum tells forgotten story of African and Indian troops in second world war National Army Museum’s Beyond Burma exhibition examines stories of soldiers from Britain’s colonies www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

#OTD in 1918, the British (incl. Australian) assault on the Hindenburg Line. Pic is from the fighting at Epéhy. Pic: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...

bird poll (Australian) www.theguardian.com/environment/...

So who else can say that they work with an expert in Second World War-era RAAF aeroplane nose art? I can! wm.awm.gov.au/read/nose-art

I'm honoured to be speaking to @petermcphee.bsky.social on Mon 6 Oct at 1pm AEDT about my book Dangers of Youth: Age, Criminality, and Juvenile Justice Reform in Third Republic France at an online event hosted by the George Rudé Society. Please register here: uni-sydney.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

#OTD in 1945, the Battle of Morotai began. HMAS Australia (pictured) and other Australian & US ships bombarded the island for some two hours prior to the landings. HMAS Australia's history is remarkable: seapower.navy.gov.au/history/unit...

Kinda spooked by how much archaeological material is within digging distance under our feet, that I'll never see, and even if I did, I wouldn't be able to interpret...

Reading a wartime love story researched & written by my colleague Alix (...and apparently also cutting up onions...) wm.awm.gov.au/read/colin-s...

Ken Inglis Postgrad Prize CLOSING SOON - 30 Sept. Did you present a paper at the AHA conference? Tidy it up and email it to us at [email protected] Read the flier for all the T&Cs. You might get published in the journal...good luck!

Fascinating reading about the Imperial Camel Corps, by one of our former Summer Scholars, Hannah Swaine: wm.awm.gov.au/read/rough-r...

Wondering about late-19th-C British army doctrine of cold steel - a seemingly unshakeable belief that, if only the British infantry could get into close combat, the battle would be won. I.e. the Corporal Jones doctrine: "They don't like it up 'em, sir!" There's a cultural study in there somewhere.

I really enjoyed reading Craig L. Symonds' *Nimitz at War* - as you can see from my review of it: researchcentre.army.gov.au/library/aust...

Come and study with us! It'll be fun! Applications are open for the Australian War Memorial Summer Scholars program, to be held in Canberra next Jan-Feb. Apply here: www.awm.gov.au/get-involved...

#OTD, 1898: the battle of Omdurman. The death blow to the Mahdist state. The British campaign in Sudan followed the same logic as retaliatory frontier parties, on a much grander scale. The brutal chastening of locals who had killed a high-ranking British man. Story: www.nam.ac.uk/explore/egyp...

We are sorry to hear of the recent death of SAHR Fellow Professor John Laband, whose work on the wars of southern Africa during the 19th century will be familiar to anyone with an interest in this era. Our condolences to his family and friends.

I'm re-reading Jonathan Richards' *Secret War* more than a decade after first encountering it, having developed a much better understanding of British Empire history, and military history. What an amazing and groundbreaking piece of scholarship it really is.

A fascinating, if sobering, read about Australians' knowledge about our military history. Spoiler: it's declining. theconversation.com/new-research... The team behind this research has done a fantastic job!

This week, 125 years ago, Friedrich Nietzsche died. Last year I was fortunate enough to visit the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar, Germany - an amazing museum to a sparkling thinker. It's also the house in which he ailed and died.

Just finished Dive! by @mikecarlton01.bsky.social - about Australian submariners and their contributions. It’s worth a read. And timely given the renewed interest in the RAN. For a long time our image of ‘defence’ was a soldier carrying a rifle. Perhaps that’s changing.

Historical pictures don't speak for themselves. A few years ago, I unpacked a lithograph relating to Tasmania's "Black War" of the 1820s and 1830s. The Australian War Memorial now has it up on the website of the new mag, "WM": wm.awm.gov.au/read/painted...

For #bookweek this year, Andrew Gordon's *Rules of the Game*. Around a narrative of the Battle of Jutland in 1916, Gordon weaves a cultural history of the Royal Navy’s officer cadre from about 1860 onwards. On top of all that, it's eminently readable, and even funny at times! Truly a masterpiece.

The Australian War Memorial's special #VPDay symposium "Interpreting Australia's Second World War: previewing Anzac Hall" is now online: www.youtube.com/live/P6vGj8_.... For more #WWII see, including author talks, see: www.awm.gov.au/the-end-of-t... #WeHaveWays #WWII #VJDay80

This Indian Independence Day, I'm thinking about Rushdie's Midnight Children, which I read for the first time earlier this year. A fantastic read. Think Tristram Shandy but with the protagonist born in Bombay in 1947.

Paperback books are like velveteen rabbits — ours to be loved and squeezed and read and stuffed into shoulder bags and left in the sun and read and read again until there's nothing left but memories from something real