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.[citation needed] Gammage corresponded with 272 Great War veterans, and consulted the personal records of another 728, mostly at the Australian War Memorial.
Gammage 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).[citation needed]
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".
In the subsequent 13-year period Gammage 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,[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.
The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War. Australia: Penguin. 1974. ISBN978-0-85179-699-4.
with Harris, David; Cole, Michael; Piggott, Reg (1976). An Australian in the First World War. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-21018-8.
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. ISBN978-0-85578-017-3.
with Williamson, David (1981). The Story of Gallipoli. Ringwood, Vic: Penguin Books. ISBN978-0-14-006105-5.
with Markus, Andrew (1982). All that dirt: aborigines 1938. Canberra: History Project, Inc., Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. ISBN978-0-949776-08-2.
Narrandera Shire. Narrandera: Bill Gammage for the Narrandera Shire Council. 1986. OCLC63179965.
with Spearritt, Peter (1987). Australians, 1938. New York: Broadway; Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates. ISBN978-0-949288-21-9.
Headon, David John; Warden, James; Gammage, Bill (1994). Crown or country: the traditions of Australian republicanism. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN978-1-86373-599-5.
The Sky Travellers: Journeys in New Guinea 1938–1939. Melbourne: Melbourne University. 1998. ISBN978-0-522-84827-4.
Australia under Aboriginal management (booklet). Barry Andrews memorial lecture. Vol. 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. ISBN978-0-73170-388-3.
Gammage, Bill; Ebooks Corporation (2011), The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia, Allen & Unwin, ISBN978-1-74237-748-3
(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
"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. doi:10.1080/00223349808572872. ISSN0022-3344.
– "Oral and Written Sources." In Oral Tradition in Melanesia. Ed. by Donald Denoon, Roderic Lacey. 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 (ed.). Australian Environmental History: Essays and Cases. Melbourne; New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 258–267. ISBN978-0195534825.
— (2006). "Landscapes transformed". In Lake, Marilyn (ed.). 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. ISBN9780522852509.
"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), Occasional paper no.1, Manoa, Honolulu: School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii, 1992, p. 9
Notes
^ abHRC webmaster (11 June 2008). "ANU – Fellows – Gammage- HRC". anu.edu.au. Director, Humanities Research Centre. Archived from the original on 22 April 2014. Retrieved 22 April 2014.
