For Hearths and Homes

Each week from the 1850s to the 1940s, thousands of Australians changed from their civilian clothes into military uniform in the evenings or on weekends to practise military drill and target shooting. They were citizen soldiers who could not be ordered overseas to fight; they were trained only to defend their "hearths and homes". This volume describes how "British" Australians prepared for war in peacetime and analyzes the legacies of that preparation for Australians today. It ranges beyond the parade ground to provide a case study of how Australian society has changed over this 90-year period. By pointing to citizen soldiering's institutional and social legacy, it touches on the rise and decline of a martial spirit, the growth of government regulation and professionalism and the evolution of the British identity into an Australian one.