Loyalty and Disloyalty: Social Conflict on the Queensland Homefront (1987) By Raymond Evans
Much is known and celebrated about the exploits of Australia's soldiers during the Great War. Far less is understood of the society the diggers left behind and how the ordeal of waging war transformed it. In Loyalty and Disloyalty, Raymond Evans set out to penetrate the veneer of social solidarity to examine a society in which deep-seated social conflicts intensified under the stress of wartime conditions.
Why did Queensland come to be labeled 'the most disloyal State' in the Commonwealth? As the war dragged on, fears of invasion spread while outbreaks of violence against radicals and aliens multiplied. Socialist, industrial, and pacifist campaigns intensified among an increasingly disaffected working class. As polarisation accelerated, loyalists among right-thinking citizens and returned soldiers mobilised to deal with sedition and perfidy. Republican, internationalists and trade unions became the targets for loyalist assaults.
In exploring these processes and revealing the way in which militarism, racism, and empire nationalism came to dominate communities, Prof Evans shed new light on the conscription struggles, the formation and work of the returned serviceman's organisations, and the fate of the anti-war movement. Loyalty and Disloyalty, first published in 1987 and out of print for some time, is still the most extensive study of the Queensland homefront during the years 1914-18.
- Soft Cover
- 247 Pages
- In Good Condition
