Bill Gammage
| Bill Gammage | |
|---|---|
| Native name | William Leonard Gammage |
| Born | 1942 Orange, New South Wales |
| Awards | Manning Clark Bicentennial History Award (1988) Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (1995) Queensland Premier's History Book Award (1999) Member of the Order of Australia (2005) Manning Clark House National Cultural Award (2011) Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History (2012) Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction (2012) Queensland Literary Awards History Book Award (2012) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Australian National University |
| Thesis title | The Broken Years: A Study of the Diaries and Letters of Australian Soldiers in the Great War, 1914–18 |
| Thesis year | 1970 |
| Doctoral advisor | Bruce Kent |
| Influences | Charles Bean |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions |
Australian National University (1997–03) University of Adelaide (1977–96) University of Papua New Guinea (1972–76) |
| Main interests | Australian history |
| Notable works |
The Broken Years (1974) The Biggest Estate on Earth (2011) |
William Leonard "Bill" Gammage AM, FASSA (born 1942) is an Australian academic historian, Adjunct Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University (ANU). He was born in Orange, New South Wales, went to Wagga Wagga High School and then to ANU. He was on the faculty of the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of Adelaide. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and deputy chair of the National Museum of Australia.
Gammage is best known for his book The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War, 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. Gammage corresponded with 272 Great War veterans, and consulted the personal records of another 728, mostly at the Australian War Memorial.
He 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).
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. His scope was cross-discipinary, working "across fields as disparate as history, anthropology and botany".
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