A Land Fit for Heroes. A Social, Cultural and Environmental History of Soldier Settlement in New South Wales, 1916-1939.

Vast tracts of NSW were settled by returned soldiers in the aftermath of the Great War. This study will assess the successes and failures of NSW s soldier settlement scheme, linking it to the long quest to raise an industrious yeomanry on Australian soil. It will address emerging themes in transnational and environmental history, enrich regional/community histories and recover the largely forgotten experience of soldier settlers and their families as they battled with the land. A timely study based on recently opened archives, it will reach out to a wide and diverse audience. Outcomes will include a monograph, a PhD thesis, library guides, public lectures, an exhibition and a website profiling all the state s 9000 soldier settlers.