Manning Clark On Gallipoli

MUP Masterworks #1

Manning Clark

Manning Clark’s History of Australia has been nominated as the most influential work of non-fiction Australia has produced.

Opinion

Now that the political exploitation of the ANZAC Legend is reaching new depths, Manning Clark's Gallipoli cuts through the self-serving myths to reach the heart of the Australian tragedy known as the First World War.
If anything can save ANZAC from crashing under the pressures of political manipulation, it will be the timely republication of this marvellous extract from the History of Australia. And once again, Australians will realise that Manning Clark is not only our greatest historian but our truest patriot.
--Graham Freudenberg

“Clark is typically verbose and paints the era with a flourish of broad brushstrokes; he presents the mood of Australians at the onset of war and their attitude as servants of the British Empire, of the naive and brash young Aussie toops’ rowdy behaviour in Egypt before they saw action, and of how they coped when the exciting prospect of combat turned to prolonged horrors of a bloody stalemate on the sheer slopes of Gallipoli.”
“sharp, relevant context, despite having been taken from [a] much larger book”
“sobering vignettes of the consequences of war”
David Sly, Adelaide Review, 29/4/05

About this Title

Manning Clark’s History of Australia has been nominated as the most influential work of non-fiction Australia has produced. As Donald Horne wrote, Clark ‘looked for great human issues and presented them as moral dramas’. In this extract from Volume 5, the tragedy of Gallipoli is played out against the broader Australian experience of World War I, as the nation, still in its infancy, struggled to make sense of the terrible conflict in Europe and its costs.

Manning Clark On Gallipoli is the first title in the MUP Masterworks series, which celebrates distinguished Australian writers and ideas. This title’s release coincides with the ninetieth anniversary commemorations of the landing at Gallipoli.

About the Author

Manning Clark was born in Sydney in 1915 and educated at the University of Melbourne and at Balliol College, Oxford. He was a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne, then Professor of History at the Australian National University. He later became ANU’s first Professor of Australian History. In 1975 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia. He died in 1991.

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978-0-522-85195-3