Nation, Memory, Myth

How myth creates meaning for a nation, through a close reading of Gallipoli and Australian Identity

In Nation, Memory, Myth, Steve Vizard brings an original perspective to the foundational myth of Gallipoli as a sacred bearer of Australian national values and identity. In this scrupulously researched close reading of the Gallipoli mythology, Vizard dissects the elements common to all national myths that transform them into compelling symbolic performances of cultural memory and kinship, unpicking the tensions and explaining the ambiguities embodied within.

Nation, Memory, Myth offers the reader a challenging new look at the extraordinary vitality of myth as a unifying force that generates meaning for a nation and its citizens. Only by understanding myth's evolution across time and by disentangling it from history, memory and forgetting, can we begin to sense what an Australia in the twenty-first century may mean.

'Whether you are an Anzacophile or an Anzacophobe, Steve Vizard has provided a fascinating framework for understanding Anzac's imaginative stronghold over the Australian nation.' Clare Wright

'A tour de force of narrative synthesis, an utter joy to read ... Professor Vizard leaps into the foundational myth of the Anzac and leads his readers through a complex, tumultuous reading of the Gallipoli narrative to ask- what is this thing, this Australia? Lucid, engaging, rigorous, compelling. Simply excellent.' Ian MaxwellM

'As a political and military event Gallipoli might well have been absurd. Vizard shows that it is only as a myth that it achieves a grandeur which endures.' Thomas Kenneally

About the Author

Steve Vizard is a prizewinning writer, broadcaster, lawyer and research professor at Monash University and the JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice, University of Adelaide. He has written and edited books on topics ranging from Australia's Constitutional Convention to Australia's population challenge and Australian humour. He has helped create, write and produce numerous groundbreaking television shows, including Fast Forward, Big Girls Blouse, The Micallef Program and Seachange, and hosted his own Gold Logie-awarded TV Show Tonight Live.