This gripping book captures the evolution by trial and error of the New Zealand army, alongside those of Australia and Canada, from the Boer War in South Africa to involvement in the First World War. It tells the story of citizen soldiers becoming professional as they learned the lessons of the Gallipoli landings and applied these to the Western Front earning them the status of the fighting elite in the British armies in France. Richly illustrated with historical photographs and maps, The Anzac Experience blends social analysis and military history in a compelling combination. In its research and writing, Christopher Pugsley walked every New Zealand battlefield on Gallipoli and the Western Front.
Christopher Pugsley is one of New Zealand's leading historians. A retired Lieutenant-Colonel in the New Zealand Army, he was a lecturer in military studies in New Zealand and Australia, and retired in 2012 as a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Among his recent works are the fifth edition of Gallipoli: The New Zealand Story and A Bloody Road Home: World War Two and New Zealand's Heroic Second Division. He has a long association with Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision (formerly the New Zealand Film Archive).
The Anzac Experience is one of the best works of Australasian military history I have ever read.
Allan Converse, The Journal of Military History