Antoine Capet’s pithy observation that commemoration is the continuation of history by other means neatly defines the focus of Peter Stanley’s latest book and the problem that he sets out to grapple with. The recently successful advocacy of a ‘Battle for Australia’ annual commemoration flies in the face of the historical record and the evidence that supports it, but the advocates of the popular notion that the Japanese stood poised to invade Australia in 1942 have never allowed the facts to get in the way of a firmly rooted belief.

Stanley is no stranger to the controversy that his position provokes. Since 2002, but especially since 2005, he has publicly and consistently argued that the evidence not only does not support the popular notion of an imminent invasion, but clearly refutes it. For his trouble he has received all the usual abusive ‘commentary’ that is the lot of those who attempt to shake popular certainty concerning one or other cherished belief: aspersions on his character, questioning of his qualifications and rubbishing of his (assumed) nationality. The standard of public debate in this country is frequently pretty low, and usually so when matters of current defence policy and our military history are the subject matter.