Craig Stockings is an Associate Professor of History at the University of New South Wales, Canberra. His areas of academic interest concern general and Australian military history and operational analysis. He has published a history of the army cadet movement in Australia entitled: The Torch and the Sword (2007), a study of the First Libyan Campaign in North Africa 1940-41: Bardia: Myth, Reality and the Heirs of Anzac (2009), and a re-interpretation of the German invasion of Greece in 1941 entitled: Swastika over the Acropolis (2013; with Dr Eleanor Hancock). He has also edited Zombie Myths of Australian Military History (2010), Anzac's Dirty Dozen: 12 Myths of Australian Military History (2012) and Before the Anzac Dawn (2013; with Dr John Connor).

Introduction: imperial defence: one man within an empire; 1. 'The common duties of the Empire': developments in the imperial defence idea, 1848-92; 2. 'An intelligent and most active officer': Hutton's formative years, 1848-92; 3. 'I suppose he sent me a blister': a colonial commandant, 1893-96; 4. A 'Trojan Horse' in the colony?: federal and imperial defence in Australia, 1893-96; 5. 'One general policy - elastic as it may be': back in Britain, 1896-98; 6. 'Making soldiers of them rapidly': reforming the Canadian militia, 1898-99; 7. 'I am here as one of yourselves': political difficulties and imperial imperatives, 1898-99; 8. 'Pregnant of great results': Canada and an Imperial War, 1899-1900; 9. 'Quite as much political and Imperial, as it is military': Hutton's war in South Africa and raising an Australian army, 1900-03; 10. 'Unfortunately not in touch or sympathy': difficulties and disappointments, 1903-04; 11. 'Hopelessly ignorant of our self-governing colonies': the New Australian Army and imperial defence, 1902-04; Epilogue: 'how far his vision ranged': the twilight years, 1905-23.