Gallipoli

Australia's biggest-selling non-fiction author brings his prodigious storytelling talents to bear on one of the defining (and most disastrous) campaigns of the First World War: Gallipoli.

Peter FitzSimons has an enviable ability to bring history to life... in Gallipoli he has produced a work of fascinatingly imaginative popular history - underpinned by meticulous research and scholarship.

FitzSimons takes us deep into the disastrous Gallipoli campaign and spells out in detail the fateful steps that led Australian and New Zealand soldiers to utter devastation, if not absolute despair.

A high-octane account . . . FitzSimons has combed the personal narratives to good effect . . . serves up the story just how Australians like to taste it.

On 25 April 1915, Allied forces – British and French, as well as Australian and New Zealand – began landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula in present-day Turkey. Their objective was to secure the sea route between Britain and France in the west and Russia in the east. After eight months of terrible fighting, they would fail. 
 
To this day, Turkey regards its victory as a defining moment in its history, a heroic last stand in the defence of the nation’s Ottoman Empire. But, counter-intuitively, it would signify something perhaps even greater for the defeated Australians and New Zealanders involved: the birth of their countries’ sense of nationhood. 
 
Now on the cusp of its centenary, the Gallipoli campaign (commemorated each year on Anzac Day) resonates with importance as the origin and symbol of Australian and New Zealand identity. As such, the facts of the battle – which was relatively minor when measured against the overall scale of the First World War (it accounted for less than a sixth of the Australian deaths on the Western Front) – are often forgotten or obscured. 
 
With his trademark vibrancy and expert melding of writing and research, one of Australia’s bestselling authors, journalist Peter FitzSimons, recreates the disastrous campaign as experienced by those who endured it or perished in the attempt.

PETER FITZSIMONS is journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald and a television presenter and reporter. He speaks four languages, used to play rugby for Australia while the individuals he has interviewed range from George Bush and Sir Edmund Hillary to Jamie Oliver, Jodie Foster and Diego Maradona. He is also Australia’s biggest-selling non-fiction author of the last decade. His books include Kokoda, Tobruk, Batavia and most recently, Ned Kelly.He lives with his wife, 'Today Show' co-host Lisa Wilkinson, and their three children in Sydney.

On 25 April 1915, Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in present-day Turkey to secure the sea route between Britain and France in the west and Russia in the east. After eight months of terrible fighting, they would fail... 
To this day, Turkey regards the victory as a defining moment in its history, a heroic last stand in the defence of the Ottoman Empire. But, counter-intuitively, it would come to signify something perhaps even greater for the defeated allies, in particular the Australians and New Zealanders: the birth of their countries’ sense of nationhood. Now, in the year that marks its centenary, the Gallipoli campaign (commemorated each year on 25 April, Anzac Day), resonates with significance as the origin and symbol of Australian and New Zealand identity. As such, the facts of the campaign (which was minor when compared to the overall scale of the First World War: Australian deaths were less than a sixth of their losses on the Western Front) are often forgotten or obscured. Now the celebrated journalist and author Peter FitzSimons, with his trademark vibrancy and expert melding of writing and research, recreates the disastrous campaign as experienced by those who endured it or perished in the attempt.

Peter FitzSimons

The Kelly book that exceeds Peter Carey's novel . . . completely felt, viscerally characterised . . . it success as compelling historical narrative . . . the bantering, zesty prose takes you in and keeps you there. But it is FitzSimons' skill at creating a sense of a fully lived inner world that achieves a consistently transformative effect on the reader's mental world - the mark of a very good book indeed.

Love him or loathe him, Ned Kelly has been at the heart of Australian culture and identity since he and his Gang were tracked down in bushland by the Victorian police and came out fighting, dressed in bulletproof iron armour made from farmers’ ploughs. 
 
Historians still disagree over virtually every aspect of the eldest Kelly boy’s brushes with the law. Did he or did he not shoot Constable Fitzpatrick at their family home? Was he a lawless thug or a noble Robin Hood, a remorseless killer or a crusader against oppression and discrimination? Was he even a political revolutionary, an Australian republican channelling the spirit of Eureka? 
 
Peter FitzSimons, bestselling chronicler of many of the great defining moments and people of Australian history, is the perfect person to tell this most iconic of all Australian stories. From Kelly’s early days in Beveridge, Victoria, in the mid-1800s, to the Felons Apprehension Act, which made it possible for anyone to shoot the Kelly Gang, to Ned’s appearance in his now-famous armour, prompting the shocked and bewildered police to exclaim ‘He is the devil!’ and ‘He is the bunyip!’. FitzSimons brings the history of Ned Kelly and his Gang exuberantly to life, weighing in on all the myths, legends and controversies generated by this compelling and divisive Irish-Australian rebel.

Peter FitzSimons

Praise for Ned Kelly

The Kelly book that exceeds Peter Carey's novel . . . completely felt, viscerally characterised . . . it success as compelling historical narrative . . . the bantering, zesty prose takes you in and keeps you there. ...

Books by Peter FitzSimons

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