Professor Peter Stanley

Biography

Prize-winning historian Professor Peter Stanley spent 33 years as a ‘public historian’ – working at the Australian War Memorial (where he was Principal Historian) and the National Museum of Australia (inaugural head of its Research Centre) before becoming Research Professor at UNSW Canberra 2013-23.

Peter has published more than 40 books, mainly in the field of Australian military-social history, though he has also published on battlefield research (A Stout Pair of Boots) medical history (For Fear of Pain) and bushfires (Black Saturday at Steels Creek). Peter has written about Australia and the Second World War, including Air Battle Europe, Tarakan: an Australian Tragedy, Alamein: the Australian Story (with Mark Johnston), Whyalla at War and Invading Australia. His books also focus on the Great War, publishing since 2005 books such as Quinn’s Post, Anzac, Gallipoli, Men of Mont St Quentin, Digger Smith and Australia’s Great War, Lost Boys of Anzac and The Crying Years.

Peter's 2010 book Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Murder, Mutiny and the Australian Imperial Force was jointly awarded the 2011 Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History. 

He has recently published several books on British Indian military history. His next three books will be Beyond the Broken Years: Australian Military History in 1000 Books, John Company’s Armies: the Military Forces of British India and a novel of sport and war set in the islands in 1945, The Sherrin.

Peter is well known for his television and radio appearances. In 2005 he co-presented Revealing Gallipoli and has been seen in many documentaries including Monash the Forgotten Anzac, Who Do You Think You Are?, In Their Footsteps, Afterburn, Australia’s Secret Heroes, The War that Changed Us , 100 Days to Victory, and others broadcast over the centenary of the Great War.