Rate My Professor Joan Beaumont

Joan Beaumont AM, FASSA, FAIIA is Professor Emerita in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre within the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University. An internationally recognized historian, her research focuses on Australia in the two world wars, Australian defence and foreign policy, prisoners of war, war memory and heritage—including the Anzac legend—and related topics such as Australia during the Great Depression, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contributions to Australia's defence, the Thai-Burma railway (1942-45), and international humanitarian law. She earned her BA Honours from the University of Adelaide in 1969 and her PhD from King's College London in 1975. In 2020, she was appointed Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to the study of war history.

Beaumont's distinguished career includes appointments as Dean of Arts and Professor of History at Deakin University and Dean of the College of Arts and Social Sciences at ANU. Her major publication, Broken Nation: Australians and the Great War (Allen & Unwin, 2013), garnered prestigious awards: joint winner of the 2014 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Australian History, the 2014 NSW Premier's Prize for Australian History, the 2014 Queensland Literary Award for History, and the 2015 Australian Society of Authors' Asher Award; it was shortlisted for the 2014 WA Premier's Prize (non-fiction) and the CHASS Prize for a Book. Among her over 70 publications are chapters such as "The Long Silence: Australian Prisoners of the Japanese" (in Australia 1944–45), "The Thai-Burma Railway: a cultural route?" (2013), and editorships including Military History Supremo: Essays in Honour of David Horner AM FASSA (ANU Press, 2025) and Serving Our Country (NewSouth, 2018, co-edited). She has contributed to public lectures, symposia, and editorial roles, enhancing the academic field's understanding of Australia's military history and its cultural impacts.