Jonathan King (historian)

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Jonathan King
BornJonathan Leslie Essington King
28 December 1942
Geelong, Victoria
OccupationHistorian and journalist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAustralian
Years active1995-

Jonathan Leslie Essington King, OAM (born 28 December 1942) [1] is an Australian historian, author and journalist. He has written 30 books in a 40-year career, [2] mostly on Australian history, including a number of works on the Anzacs. King has also written thousands of articles for Australian newspapers and magazines, produced and presented numerous television documentary films, and acted as resident historian on many radio programs. [3]

Contents

In 1977, King proposed and organised the First Fleet Re-enactment Voyage to commemorate the Australian Bicentenary in 1988. As the Australian Bicentenary Authority and the Australian government declined to support the project, King set up the voyage as a private venture and obtained corporate sponsorship for the re-enactment, as well as state government grants and public donations. [4]

In October 2002, King attended a conference in Turkey called "Australia in Peace and War" at which historians discussed Gallipoli and the Anzac legend. As history correspondent for The Australian newspaper, King wrote an article for the paper titled "Charge of the rewrite brigade", which stated that the conference had concluded that Australians should reframe the Gallipoli Campaign as an "unmitigated disaster" and apologise to the Turkish government for invading their country. The claims in the article provoked controversy in Australia and New Zealand. [5] Jenny Macleod in her essay "Beckham, Waugh and the Memory of Gallipoli" in the book New Zealand's Great War asserts that King mis-attributed quotes, and mis-represented the "broader political edge" of the conference. [6]

In April 2018, Fairfax Media published a correction and apology for numerous factual errors published in King's article in Fairfax newspapers about John Monash and the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux. [7]

King is also an environmental campaigner, having held positions with the Australian Conservation Foundation and running several times for office as a Democrats and Greens candidate. [3]

King was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours for "service to community history". [8]

Books

Great Moments in Australian History

Great Moments in Australian History (2009) describes 66 events from the early colonial period through the Eureka Rebellion and Gallipoli to Kevin Rudd's apology to the "Stolen Generations". [9] [10]

Great Battles in Australian History

Great Battles in Australian History (2011) runs from the Battle of Vinegar Hill through the Boer War and the many First World War and Second World War battles involving Australians, before covering Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. [11] It was praised by Weekly Times (Australia) for its organisation, explanation of the importance of battles, and the "immediacy and energy" of his descriptions of battles: although they found the content predictable the presentation was good. [12]

Related Research Articles

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Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia, New Zealand and Tonga that broadly commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders "who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations" and "the contribution and suffering of all those who have served". Observed on 25 April each year, Anzac Day was originally devised to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who served in the Gallipoli campaign, their first engagement in the First World War (1914–1918).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gallipoli campaign</span> Military campaign during World War I

The Gallipoli campaign, the Dardanelles campaign, the Defence of Gallipoli or the Battle of Gallipoli was a military campaign in the First World War on the Gallipoli peninsula from 19 February 1915 to 9 January 1916. The Entente powers, Britain, France and the Russian Empire, sought to weaken the Ottoman Empire, one of the Central Powers, by taking control of the Ottoman straits. This would expose the Ottoman capital at Constantinople to bombardment by Entente battleships and cut it off from the Asian part of the empire. With the Ottoman Empire defeated, the Suez Canal would be safe and the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits would be open to Entente supplies to the Black Sea and warm-water ports in Russia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Chunuk Bair</span> 1915 conflict in Gallipoliㅤ

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian and New Zealand Army Corps</span> First World War military force

The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was originally a First World War army corps of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. It was formed in Egypt in December 1914, and operated during the Gallipoli campaign. General William Birdwood commanded the corps, which primarily consisted of troops from the First Australian Imperial Force and 1st New Zealand Expeditionary Force, although there were also British and Indian units attached at times throughout the campaign. The corps disbanded in 1916, following the Allied evacuation of the Gallipoli peninsula and the formation of I ANZAC Corps and II ANZAC Corps. The corps was re-established, briefly, in the Second World War during the Battle of Greece in 1941. The term 'ANZAC' has been used since for joint Australian–New Zealand units of different sizes.

HMAS <i>Anzac</i> (D59) Battle-class destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy

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General Sir Alexander John Godley, was a senior British Army officer. He is best known for his role as commander of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and II Anzac Corps during the First World War.

Mat McLachlan is an Australian author, historian and television presenter. His first book, Walking With the Anzacs: A Guide to Australian Battlefields on the Western Front, was published by Hachette Australia in February 2007. It was reprinted in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. A fully revised edition was published in 2015.

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There are approximately 12,000 Australians in Turkey. Of these, the overwhelming majority are in the capital Ankara, and the remainder are mostly in Istanbul. Australian expatriates in Turkey form one of the largest overseas Australian groups in Europe and Asia. The vast majority of Australian nationals in Turkey are Turkish Australians.

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<i>Anna Kristina</i> (ship)

Anna Kristina is a Norwegian-flagged, galeas-rigged Hardangerjakt. Originally named Dyrafjeld, the sloop-rigged vessel was built on a Norwegian farm in 1889. The ship's early career was as a cargo ship in the Hardanger region, with occasional voyages as far afield as Russia. She was sold to new owners and rerigged as a galeas in the late 1920s. The sails were removed during World War II, but continued in merchant service until the mid-1970s. After a series of accidents, the vessel was laid up, then sold to new owners, who restored the vessel and renamed her Anna Kristina. Charter work occurred throughout the 1980s, including involvement in the First Fleet Re-enactment Voyage.

Peter Stanley is a prominent Australian military historian, who specialises in the military-social experience of war in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. In a career spanning more than four decades, Stanley has worked as an historian and later head of the Military History Section at the Australian War Memorial (1980–2007), head of the Centre for Historical Research at the National Museum of Australia (2007–13) and, since 2013, as Research Professor at the University of New South Wales in the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society. Beginning in 1977—and as at 2023—Stanley has written 29 books and edited eight others, published four novels and co-authored a booklet, and contributed at least 49 chapters in books and anthologies, 59 journal articles, seven encyclopaedia entries and numerous papers. In 2011, his book Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny, Murder and the Australian Imperial Force (2010) was the joint winner of the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Reynaud</span> Australian historian

Daniel Reynaud is an Australian historian whose work on Australian war cinema and on Australian World War I soldiers and religion has challenged aspects of the Anzac legend, Australia’s most important national mythology built around the role of Australian servicemen, popularly known as Anzacs

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian McGibbon</span> New Zealand historian

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gallipoli Peninsula Historical Site</span> Historical site in Gallipoli, Turkey

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References

  1. Australian Democrat Candidates – Federal Election 1990
  2. "Author Jonathan King aims to remember fallen diggers", Lydia Sawtell, Melbourne Leader, 11 November 2011
  3. 1 2 Green, Antony. "Mackellar". 2013 Australian Federal Election. Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
  4. "First Fleet Re-enactment Company records, 1978–1990". State Library New South Wales. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
  5. Johnston, Martin (19 January 2003). "Apology absurd for 'invasion'". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
  6. Crawford, John; McGibbon, Ian (2007). New Zealand's Great War: New Zealand, the Allies, and the First World War. Auckland: Exisle Publishing. ISBN   978-1927147344.
  7. "Correction and apology". The Sydney Morning Herald. 27 April 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
  8. "Dr Jonathan Leslie King". It's an Honour. Retrieved 12 June 2022.
  9. Lachlan Hastings, "Great Moments in Australian History", Weekly Times, 24 March 2010
  10. Jobbins, Lachlan. Great Moments in Australian History [Book Review] [online]. Bookseller + Publisher Magazine, Vol. 89, No. 4, Nov 2009: 39.
  11. Michael E. Daniel, "Book review: From Vinegar Hill to the mountains of Afghanistan", News Weekly (Australia), 17 March 2012
  12. Christopher Bantick, "Review: Great Battles in Australian History", Weekly Times (Australia), 25 April 2012