Pandemic: The Spanish Flu in Australia 1918–1920 by Ian W. Shaw

Reviewed by: Pandemic: The Spanish Flu in Australia 1918–1920 by Ian W. Shaw Heather Battles (bio) Ian W. Shaw, Pandemic: The Spanish Flu in Australia 1918–1920 (Warriewood, NSW: Woodslane Press, 2020). ISBN: 978-1-925868-44-9 (PB). 8 B&W photographs. vi + 271 pp. The centenary of the 1918 influenza pandemic and subsequent emergence of SARS-CoV-2 have sparked widespread public and scholarly interest in the responses to and experiences of the 1918 flu and what lessons it may offer us today. Published in 2020—the first year of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, Pandemic: The Spanish Flu in Australia 1918–1920 explores the Australian experience, focusing on actions taken by differing levels of government (federal, state, municipal), and the varying responses and experiences among Australia’s states. The book seeks in part to address the question of why Australia’s 1918 mortality was so much lower than much of the rest of the world. These events are illustrated through stories of individuals who shaped these responses and experiences, from government officials, public servants, and medical professionals to community volunteer groups and their individual unnamed volunteers. Shaw argues that it was, in large part, through the actions of such individuals that Australia came through the pandemic with comparatively lower impact. The book consists of fourteen chapters (an introduction and thirteen main chapters) plus a brief appendix and a note on sources. The first half of the book focuses on the lead-up to the arrival of pandemic influenza in Australia, covering how the country prepared and some of the early outbreaks in quarantine facilities. The second half of the book examines the actions taken by the different levels of government, particularly comparing the responses and experiences of each state or region, beginning with New South Wales (NSW) and ending with Tasmania and, at the other end of the country, Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. In these latter chapters, Shaw assesses each state’s response; NSW is singled out for the greatest praise, while Victoria is judged fairly harshly. A key reference point throughout the book is a conference held in November 1918 in Melbourne, in which the Commonwealth and states agreed to a series of recommendations to address an anticipated outbreak of pandemic flu—and a key theme [End Page 194] is that this agreement subsequently broke down. In “Chapter 13: Post-Mortem”, Shaw concludes with a discussion of the research and assessments of the origins and impact of the 1918 influenza pandemic since 1920. He compares Australian flu mortality rates to flu mortality estimates elsewhere, while noting that these rates varied within countries. Shaw gives the mortality rate for Australia as less than 3 per 1,000 population, lower than that of the European population in neighboring New Zealand (5 per 1,000) and of England (4.3 per 1,000). He also notes that mortality was certainly much higher in Australia’s Indigenous population and that the official figures are undercounts. This chapter also details what happened to some of the individuals profiled in the book after the pandemic ended (or to their surviving family members). He ends with some reflections on the parallels between the 1918 flu experience and COVID-19, noting that there may be lessons that can be applied to the next pandemic. Shaw is a former teacher and security consultant who has worked as a nonfiction writer full-time during the past decade. He has published eight previous books on Australian history based on historical and archival materials, with a frequent focus on military-related events and two books specifically on the experiences of Australian nurses. This background is evident in his particular attention in this book to the actions of Australian nurses and the military in relation to the 1918 flu outbreak in the Pacific and at the Australian border. The book draws largely on historical newspaper content from the National Library of Australia’s Trove database, as well as from some archival materials and secondary sources. This is not an academic history, in that there is an overall lack of engagement with historical scholarship, with very limited citations. This includes limited references to other historical work on...