ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book primarily focuses on several activities reading, film and concert-going, listening to or playing music, and educational activities. When Darryl Dymock wrote his history of the Australian Army Education Service in World War II, he wrote that such a history might be seen as part of writing a history of what happens when nothing happens' in war. Throughout the twentieth century, print, music, sound and film have played a significant enough role in everyday modern life to be seen as integral to that life, and a study of soldier-audiences in wartime. Military scholars have also identified the extent to which military life could engender a sense of powerlessness in the individual. Entertainment and education could also provide them with a way of linking to the outside, civilian world. A study of Australian soldier-audiences suggests how average soldiers might have made sense of their war experiences in relation to this mythology.
