Other People's Wars

A one-volume history of Australia's involvement in multinational peacekeeping, from 1947 to the end of 2003, including the most recent involvement in the Solomons.

Australians have been involved in more conflicts as peacekeepers than as belligerents. This is a part of our history which every Australian citizen, and every school child, should know.

Other People's Wars is the first book to tell the whole story of Australia's peacekeeping activities, from the four military observers Australia sent to Java in 1947 to our current deployment in the Solomons. Drawing on years of research in archives, visits to operations in the field, and interviews with peacekeepers, Peter Londey has written an account of our peacekeeping history which is at once both encyclopaedic and readable.

Every Australian peacekeeping operation is here, with incisive accounts of the causes of the conflict, the aims of the multinational intervention, the Australian contribution, and the story of what happened. The book treats United Nations and non-UN operations alike and as well as describing the role of the military, it gives full coverage to missions where Australia sent civilian police.

Other People's Wars highlights the diversity of Australia's peacekeepers: military observers tramping up mountains in Kashmir, or being shot at in Jerusalem; helicopters in the Sinai, RAN ships in the Persian Gulf; Army engineers in Namibia, doctors in Rwanda, signallers in Cambodia, infantry in Somalia and East Timor; civilian police in Cyprus and civilian peace monitors on Bougainville.