MCcentral MacKillop College: Discovery HSC English: War Literature

Australia

AIF War diaries 1918. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Australian War Memorial
Click on Collections Search for images from various conflicts.
Australian War Memorial collection
Photographs from the Austrailan War Memorial collection on Flickr.
Sets include National Service in Australia, Of love and war, and children.

War Stories

The Strange War: Stories for a Culture of Peace
Short stories collected by Martin Auer.

War Poetry

The End and the Beginning
By Wislawa Szymborska.
War Poems
The WebsterWorld Poems of Peace and War.
Document from TGS.
The First World War Poetry Digital Archive
The First World War Poetry Digital Archive is an online repository of over 7000 items of text, images, audio, and video for teaching, learning, and research.
Top 10 war poems
Chosen from 1,000 years of English writing about war, poet and Oxford professor Jon Stallworthy selects some of the best attempts to think through this most extreme of human experiences. From The Guardian.

Images and Multimedia

#180702688 / gettyimages.com

Soldier grieving for dead friend

BBC History - World Wars
World War One
World War Two
Genocide under the Nazis
the Cold War
Imperial War Museum
The art of war
A newsreel mocking Hitler, posters of brave British soldiers and other morale-boosting artwork created for Britain's Ministry of Information during World War II can now be seen in a new online exhibit prepared by London's National Archives. The site includes a history of the Ministry of Information, backgrounds on the 74 artists in the collection and curator notes.
Images of War - Combat Photography 1918-1971
From Eyewitness to History
World War One Photo Archive
World War I Photo Essay
From Modern American Poetry
Reporting America at War: the power of pictures
From PBS.
WarShooter
A Portal for Photojournalists Covering Conflict, Crisis & Disaster
Chris Hondros
Chris Hondros (March 14, 1970 – April 20, 2011) was an American Pulitzer Prize-nominated photojournalist, with an exceptional portfolio covering most of the world’s major conflicts, including work in Kosovo, Afghanistan, the West Bank, Iraq, Liberia, Egypt and Libya. He was also a frequent lecturer and published essayist on issues of war.
French soldier’s room unchanged 96 years after his death in first world war
Parents kept room as it was the day he left, and stipulated when they moved that it should not be changed for 500 years.
The top 10 books about returning from war
US marines veteran Phil Klay, whose short story collection about the Iraq war won a National book award, chooses his favourite books about homecoming after conflict.

Programs from PBS

American Photography - Photography and War
From PBS
The Civil War - A film by Ken Burns
1861-1865
The Great War
1914-1918 The Great War and the shaping of the 20th Century.
The Perilous Fight
America's World War II In Color
Berga: Soldiers of another war
The story of American Prisoners of War in World War II.
Enemies of War
For nearly a decade, El Salvador had been experiencing the cruel intensity of civil war, a conflict reportedly fueled by billions of dollars in aid from the United States government. Then, in 1989, an unspeakable crime occurred, one that would shock the international community and eventually lead a nation towards peace. From PBS
The Gulf War
An in-depth examination of the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf crisis.

War Stories from modern conflicts

The Shrine Down the Hall
Ashley Gilbertson’s photographs from his show “The Shrine Down the Hall.”
Some of the bedrooms America's young war dead left behind.

Run Jose

Abducted as a child, forced to kill, Jose has a dream one night and decides to risk everything to act on it.

Conversation: Kevin Powers, Author of 'The Yellow Birds'

Soldier's Gallipoli letter reveals horrors of war

Like many soldiers returning from WWI, Herry Gower kept his nightmares to himself. But after his death, his belongings were given to his son. They revealed to his family some of the most painful moments during his years with the Australian Army. Report by Alice Roberts.

Library Resources

Reading Lists

New Books

The great anti-war cartoons by Craig Yoe
Call Number: 741.5 GRE
ISBN: 9781606991503
The world's greatest war cartoonists and caricaturists, 1792-1945 by Mark Bryant
Call Number: 741.5 BRY
ISBN: 9781908117083
Speeches of war and peace by Larry Buttrose
Call Number: 808.85 BUT
ISBN: 9781741108682
A hell for heroes by Knell, Theo
Call Number: BIO 356 KNE
ISBN: 9781444742893
Theodore Knell went through hell in the SAS - but his biggest battle began when he left. A HELL FOR HEROES is a searingly honest autobiography about what life in the military service is really like.