The Last Word?: Essays on Official History in the United States and British Commonwealth

by Grey, Jeffrey

• ISBN13: 9780313310836
• ISBN10: 0313310831
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-11-30
• Publisher: Greenwood Pub Group

Summary

Official history is a misunderstood genre of historical writing, which attracts much negative comment from (non-official) historians but about which very little detail is actually known. This book examines the development of official history programs in Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand over the course of the twentieth century, looking at the ways in which they developed and the contributions each made to their respective national historiography. The second part of the work develops some themes from the first and takes the official histories of the Second World War as case studies. Drawing on programs in Australia, Britain, and the United States, these essays examine the relationship between the histories, the historians, and their sponsoring institutions. They assess the impact of the histories on historical understanding of the Second World War. They also consider the impact that contemporary events during the Cold War had on the writing of the official history.

Author Biography

JEFFREY GREY is Associate Professor in the School of History at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra, Australia. He is the author or editor of twenty books and numerous other publications in the fields of Australian, Commonwealth, and comparative military history.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	ix
Jeffrey Grey
PART I: NATIONAL TRADITIONS
Canadian Official Military History: The End of an Era?	3	(24)
S.F. Wise
Contested Histories: Official History and the South African Military in the Twentieth Century	27	(26)
Ian van der Waag
`Something of Them Is Here Recorded': Official History in New Zealand	53	(16)
Ian McGibbon
Continuity and Change in the Australian Official History Tradition	69	(14)
Peter Edwards
PART II: ASPECTS OF OFFICIAL HISTORIES OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Change Becomes Continuity: The Start of the U.S. Army's `Green Book' Series	83	(22)
Edward J. Drea
Gavin Long and History at the Australian War Memorial	105	(12)
Peter Stanley
Exploiting Enemy Records: The Enemy Documentation Section and the Official Histories of the Second World War	117	(16)
Jeffery Grey
British Official Histories of the Air War	133	(14)
Christina J. M. Goulter
Setting the Historical Agenda: Webster and Frankland and the Debate over the Strategic Bombing Offensive against Germany, 1939-1945	147	(28)
Sebastian Cox
Index	175	(3)
About the Editor and Contributors	178