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“Unbounded Enthusiasm”: 1 Australian Historians and the Outbreak of the Great War
Author(s) -
Mansfield Grant
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
australian journal of politics and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-8497
pISSN - 0004-9522
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8497.2007.00463.x
Subject(s) - enthusiasm , historiography , scholarship , interpretation (philosophy) , history , mythology , world war ii , political science , classics , law , philosophy , theology , linguistics
There is a growing body of European scholarship revising the traditionally held view that the peoples of Europe greeted the war with boundless patriotic enthusiasm. Niall Ferguson, Jean‐Jacques Becker and Jeffery Verhey in particular have argued that the “August Days” were more myth than reality. The outbreak of the war in Australia has not yet attracted similar attention. With few exceptions, Australian scholars writing about the opening days and weeks of the war have agreed that Australian popular reaction was dominated by overwhelming enthusiasm. This paper will explore the Australian historiography, since the 1930s, and assess the extent to which the “traditional” interpretation is in need of re‐investigation.