Joy Damousi is Professor of History at the University of Melbourne.
She has had a long-standing interest in Australian political history,
beginning with her first book published twenty years ago on women
in left-wing movements, Women Come Rally: Socialism, communism
and gender in Australia 1890-1955 (1994). Since then she has written
on various aspects of the politics and impact of war, migration
and internationalism throughout the Cold War period. Her books
include Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia and Grief in
Post-war Australia (2001), Freud in the Antipodes: A Cultural History
of Psychoanalysis in Australia (2005) and Colonial Voices: A Cultural
History of English in Australia 1840-1940 (2010). She is co-editor of
Diversity in Leadership: Australian Women, Past and Present (2014).

This moving book focuses on the experiences of Australian women who lost their husbands during World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Introduction; 1. Remembering war widows; 2. The wars; 3. Remembering death in war: loss, nostalgia and regret; 4. The question of silence; 5. Marriage wars: 1945-65; 6. Forgotten wars; 7. Memories of death, solitude and renewal; 8. Conclusion.