The Long Search for Peace: Volume 1, The Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations: Observer Missions and Beyond, 1947-2006

Volume I of the Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations recounts the Australian peacekeeping missions that began between 1947 and 1982, and follows them through to 2006, which is the end point of this series. The operations described in The Long Search for Peace - some long, some short; some successful, some not - represent a long period of learning and experimentation, and were a necessary apprenticeship for all that was to follow. Australia contributed peacekeepers to all major decolonisation efforts: for thirty-five years in Kashmir, fifty-three years in Cyprus, and (as of writing) sixty-one years in the Middle East, as well as shorter deployments in Indonesia, Korea and Rhodesia. This volume also describes some smaller-scale Australian missions in the Congo, West New Guinea, Yemen, Uganda and Lebanon. It brings to life Australia's long-term contribution not only to these operations but also to the very idea of peacekeeping.

About the Author

Peter Londey has taught in Classics at the Australian National University and worked as a senior historian at the Australian War Memorial. At the Memorial he wrote the first history of Australian peacekeeping, Other Peoples' Wars (2004).

David Horner is Emeritus Professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, where he was previously Professor of Australian Defence History. He is the Official Historian of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations.

Rhys Crawley is an historian at the Australian War Memorial, a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University, and an adjunct lecturer at the University of New South Wales, Canberra.