iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

Pity the ABC doesn’t realise that it’s’Anzac’, not ‘ANZAC’, but it’s great that it’s stimulating the discussion.

Reposted by Peter Stanley

Rex Patrick @mrrexpatrick.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Who to pay regard to? Two intellects on the ground in Britain who tell us our UK #AUKUS partner ‘looks seriously unserious about naval defence’ … or … our Prime Minister who assures us politicians in London are committed. #auspol

navalinstitute.com.au

UK ‘unserious’ about naval defence | The Australian Naval Institute

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Why I’m utterly disillusioned with the Albanese government - from today’s Garuniad.

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Reposted by Peter Stanley

Stephen Clarke @stephenclarkenz.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

A reminder that Anzac Day 1916 began with the people as a spontaneous desire by Gallipoli veterans and mourning communities to remember their dead. 110 years on government still catching-up with how local communities have been commemorating in practice for decades. www.mch.govt.nz/news/anzac-d...

mch.govt.nz

Anzac Day 2026: Recognising all who have served, past and present | Manatū Taonga | Ministry for Culture & Heritage

New Zealanders will gather across the country on 25 April to mark Anzac Day 2026, coming together in remembrance of all those who have served the nation in times of war, conflict, and peace support op...

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

We should be re-posting this image regularly, to remind everyone that a dangerously deluded narcissist is loose in the White House.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Sad that the only vacant shop in Smithfield shopping mall, Cairns, is a bookshop. What does that say?

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

Me too! I say that having just rolled back to our hotel in Palm Cove after a four-course dinner on New Year’s Eve- happy new year, David & Kristen and good luck with the book business!

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

“Are you feeling upset by the archives you’re reading?” Well, bloody grow up! You’re only reading about it, FFS! The Victorian Archives Centre has a “sanctuary space” so you can be “traumatised “ in private. Good grief…

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

I’ve just finished reading Catherine Merridale’s Ivan’s War (2005) - about the Red Army in the ‘Great Patriotic War. She uses veterans’ testimony more sparingly than I expected. But her insights into veterans’ memories are excellent. It’s been useful for my present book, on the AIF in the Great War.

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Reposted by Peter Stanley

Denise Mina @damedenisemina.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

in 2016 a woman sued him for raping her when she was 13. The day after he was elected President of the U.S. she dropped her case. D’ye believe her now? Still think she made it up for attention and money? You know exactly who he is. You’ve always known.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

The new version of The Forsyte Saga - The Forsytes - is absolute cobblers. Not a patch on the two earlier outings. Pretend Victorian - too many errors to count. It’s a melodrama - we won’t be watching episode 2. Hair, clothes, language - and a black stockbroker! Absolute rubbish.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

Just visiting the excellent “1975” exhibition at the National Library of Australia. But look what you see on the very first panel - a warning that it deals with “some sensitive and distressing material “! Er, like every year in human history!

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

The Minister for Veterans' Affairs seems to be dragging his heels over new appointments to the Council of the Australian War Memorial. I've had a say about it at the invitation of the Canberra Times: www.defendingcountry.au/news/how-abo...

defendingcountry.au

Defending Country | How about it Minister? Let's fill those Memorial Council vacancies

Analysis of current state of play on Memorial vacancies

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Very sad news from Canada. Respected Canadian military historian Tim Cook is dead. www.newswire.ca/news-release... I only met him once, but I admired and respected his work. As I've just said to a friend, 'he was the Canadian Jeff Grey' - a power in the field.

newswire.ca

War Museum announces passing of Chief Historian, Dr. Tim Cook

/CNW/ - The following is a statement issued today by Canadian War Museum and Canadian Museum of History President and CEO Caroline Dromaguet: "The Canadian War...

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

This is a common problem in Australia - apparently, 'we' fought for freedom on Gallipoli - although everyone alive in 1915 is now dead.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the Australian landing on Tarakan, the subject of my forthcoming book, Oboe One: Tarakan, 1945, to be published soon by #BigSky. This is the draft cover - the new one's even better. It's a revised version of my 1997 book Tarakan: An Australian Tragedy.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Dr David Stephens, key player in Defending Country (which tries to hold the Australian War Memorial accountable over its representation of the Australian Wars, aka Frontier Conflict) thinks that the AWM has produced an exhibition about Defending Country, 'Critical Witness'. Apt, but no such luck ...

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

ArtSound FM Canberra is broadcasting my radio play 'Wanterwrite, Wanterlove' ( dramatising the courtship of Charles and Effie in 1920) at 1pm on Anzac Day, 4pm on the 27th and 10pm on the 28th - and you can listen to it outside Canberra on DAB+ 90.3 or on artsound.fm - listen any time. Enjoy!

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

search.app/57LfHNfcCCiD... I’m looking forward to speaking in the online talks program of the admirable Military History and Heritage Victoria, this evening 7pm.

search.app

The Allonville Disaster: notorious or forgotten? With Prof. Peter Stanley – MHHV

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

I visited the Australian War Memorial yesterday and was pleased to see that the 10-pounder mountain gun, used by the Indian mountain batteries at Anzac, is still on display in the Gallipoli gallery. Their service is documented in my Die in Battle - the first book on Indians on Gallipoli (2015). #AWM

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Yes! Garry Hills’s Great at Heart is a really good book, one we’ve been waiting for since Gavin Long died in 1968!

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Whyalla needs all the help it can get. It’s not charity - Whyalla produces three-quarters of Australia’s steel. If it goes under we’d be even more vulnerable to the vagaries of the world economy - and Trump’s shenanigans has shown how dangerous that can be.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

One of the pleasures of a public library in Anzac season is to surreptitiously ensure that the book display features you and your friends.Here in Dickson (ACT), books by (l to r) Mark Johnston, me, Douglas Newton and Ross McMullin - all worth reading this April!

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

I don’t know a lot about philosophy and what Kant, Spinoza and the Natural Philosophy gang thought about the nature of things, but I think that this is very funny. Perhaps graphics (aka comics) can illuminate the world?

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

Joining AUKUS is one of the dumbest decisions any Australian government has ever taken. Why didn't Albanese say 'let's think about this ...' - and then decide, saying, 'this is a lot of money with no guarantee of any submarines being delivered - and it destroys Australia's national sovereignty'.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

I'm delighted to tell you that at 1 pm on Anzac Day ArtSound FM Canberra will broadcast my radio play 'Wanterwrite, Wanterlove' - about the courtship of Charles and Effie Bean at Tuggeranong while Charles was writing Vol. I of his official history, in the aftermath of the Great War.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Yes! I can’t believe how many people use ‘female’ or ‘male’ as a noun. It’s just wrong.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

How ironic that The English Association abets the decay of the English language, by, for example, using unnecessary new terms like ‘access’ as a verb. There are perfectly good options already available to us - think about it!

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

My daughters loved to have me read this book to them, aged about 3-7 in the mid-1990s. Happy days.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Perhaps they should denounce their president, who doesn’t seem to have heard of faith, hope or charity, and certainly doesn’t love his neighbour.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

I photographed 20 years of this for a good friend - the basis of a future book, I hope and expect. It was fascinating and reminded me of what a fantastic and largely untapped source unit newsletters can be.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

This is why I’m voting Greens, not Labor at this election. Anthony Salmonella more like …

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Paul Macpherson on The Sherrin: "... a great read. I was particularly taken by your description of the separate war of the commandos ... I look forward to recommending it to all and sundry." Thank you Paul!

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Today Ivan the plasterer came to fix a hole in the wall. While chatting he said that his Dad had been at Kokoda but he didn’t know anything about it. It took me no time to find the NAA files of his father, grandfather and uncle. I can’t fix a hole in a wall, but I can plug another kind of gap #NAA

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Reposted by Peter Stanley

Rex Patrick @mrrexpatrick.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

With a gas reservation policy on ALL gas producers, we’d have instant electricity price reductions. But the major parties won’t do it. They care too much for the gas cartel and consumers in Japan, Sth Korea & Singapore - and not Australians 🤬. #auspol

abc.net.au

Coalition gives two different timelines for bill savings from gas plan

Modelling has found the opposition's flagship gas reservation policy may bring down household electricity bills by "around 3 per cent" next year, meaning a saving of roughly $50 to $70 a year for most...

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Hooray! Well done. (I’m gradually getting going with Bluesky but am confused about various things- I may need a remedial tutorial some time.) PS

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Ah yes, I remember! Good to hear from you. I’ll be speaking in London on another British India subject (Charles James Napier) in July - stay tuned … all the best cheerio Peter

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Reposted by Peter Stanley

AHA (Australia) @austhistassoc.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

The AHA expresses its disappointment that recent policy changes at the National Library of Australia have introduced increased restrictions to Trove. It urges the NLA to reverse these policy changes and restore Trove's status as a hallmark of digital accessibility.

theaha.org.au

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Thank you, Hannah. I very much enjoyed my encounter with history buffs in the Bue Mountains- lots of sharp questions and enjoyable exchanges - and meeting up with some old friends. The Blackheath History Forum is an impressive institution.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

This evening I had the privilege of moving the vote of thanks to Christina Twomey and Joan Beaumont, who discussed the new edition of Joan’s 1988 Gull Force (on Australian PoWs on Ambon and Hainan 1942-45). Insightful discussion and perceptive questions from the floor. Thank you Colin Steele at ANU.

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Yesterday I addressed the active and energetic Blackheath History Forum (iBlue Mountains, NSW) on some issues in current understandings of Australian military history. Very responsive group (if rather reluctant to actually buy books) but an enjoyable encounter with some thoughtful people - thanks!

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

And to you, Stephen- all the best and I hope you’re well, happy and productive. Cheerio Peter

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Peter Stanley @stanleyhistorian.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

We mustn’t ‘double down’ on anything! We must, however, emphasise, repeat, reiterate, support or stress these values. Please don’t use vapid Americanisms - and representatives of learned societies have a special responsibility to use our endangered language carefully.

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