Evan

As the far right in Australia has historically been very small and quite fractured, the material collected in ASIO files help historians gain a better understanding of how far right groups operated in Australia, their ideologies and their attempts at activism. However, we should also remember that the intelligence reports, as well as the source material collected by ASIO and other agencies, reflect the interests of the security services, the police and the government at the time. ASIO and other agencies, such as various Special Branches of the police around the country, were not impartial observers, but parties interested in collecting information on subversive or dangerous political movements, as well as the disruption of these movements.67 Focusing on records generated by surveillance by the police or the security services, it is recognised that these records are a manifestation of intelligence: “a secret addendum to a body of knowledge that the state—not at all secretly—collects.”68 The purpose of this form of intelligence, as operated by agencies like ASIO, is to gain knowledge of sections of the domestic population who are considered a “threat” or “risk” to national security or the political/economic structures in place, although this is often broadly defined and capable of bureaucratic expansion. As Eva Horn has written, “Intelligence is like a classified encyclopedia of the world, knowledge about everything, but not for everyone.”69 Intelligence records are made for the purposes of the state, not the public, but through several means, such as freedom of information requests, routine government declassification or public inquiry, historians may gain access to these records.

Working with criminologists, I have tried to be more reflective in my writing about the sources that I use. For example, I have this explicit bit in my latest paper with @booklearning.bsky.social on critically using intelligence sources.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Here’s something I’m curious about…

Historians, do you put an explicit methodology section in your journal articles?

radical online collections and archives I am very interested in the growing amount of radical literature from around the world that is being scanned and digitised. As there are so many and from many different places, I thought it would b…

Nearly 10,000 *online* and *open access* collections of radical, labour and anti-colonial historical documents are now listed.

But always looking for more!

If you know of any collections not listed, please get in touch.

#history #archives

hatfulofhistory.com/radical-onli...

TIL, via Josh Widdecombe's new podcast, Museum of Popular Culture, that the Spice Girls' 1996 interview with The Spectator (where Geri Halliwell claimed 'Thatcher was the first Spice Girl') was conducted by popular historian of Stalin, Simon Sebag Montefiore.

archive.spectator.co.uk/article/14th...

Museum of Pop Culture with Josh Widdicombe Comedy Podcast · Updated Twice Weekly · Join Josh Widdicombe (Parenting Hell) as he tells the greatest stories in the history of popular culture. Partnered each time by one of his best friends in th...

Here’s the relevant episode podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/m...

TIL, via Josh Widdecombe's new podcast, Museum of Popular Culture, that the Spice Girls' 1996 interview with The Spectator (where Geri Halliwell claimed 'Thatcher was the first Spice Girl') was conducted by popular historian of Stalin, Simon Sebag Montefiore.

archive.spectator.co.uk/article/14th...

Looking from the North: Australian History from the Top Down Published in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (Ahead of Print, 2026)

New advance access book review published by @jich.bsky.social

@drbenjaminjones.bsky.social reviews Henry Reynolds' "Looking from the North: Australian History from the Top Down"

@newsouthpublishing.bsky.social

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Looking from the North: Australian History from the Top Down Published in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (Ahead of Print, 2026)

New advance access book review published by @jich.bsky.social

@drbenjaminjones.bsky.social reviews Henry Reynolds' "Looking from the North: Australian History from the Top Down"

@newsouthpublishing.bsky.social

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

ICYMI: Who Makes the Far Right?

@booklearning.bsky.social and I used membership application forms for the National Front of Australia (secretly copied by ASIO in 1980/1) to analyse who supported the far right in Australia in 1970s-80s.

Open access article!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

For any postgrad students writing an abstract for a conference, this is really helpful!

Presenting as a PhD is as much about presenting what you know as it is about presenting what you hope to do to an audience who can help with that! I would encourage you to put in an abstract.

Can any labor historians out there give me an example of a union that dramatically expanded its platform because of a shift in demographics of its constituents? E.g., newly taking a stand on racial injustice or civil rights because those issues became key to its new membership 🙏

Big Ange will have his revenge on the Premier League

A special issue of our journal Labour History Review on ‘Anti-Imperialism and the Global Left: New Appraisals’ is out now sslh.org.uk/2026/02/09/l...

No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech This book is the first to outline the history of the tactic of ‘no platforming’ at British universities since the 1970s, looking at more than four decades of student protest against racist and fascist...

Want to know about the history of free speech debates at UK universities? What the heck is ‘no platforming’?

I wrote a book about all of this once.

www.routledge.com/No-Platform-...

Here’s a thread from earlier summarising our findings.

bsky.app/profile/evan...

ICYMI: Who Makes the Far Right?

@booklearning.bsky.social and I used membership application forms for the National Front of Australia (secretly copied by ASIO in 1980/1) to analyse who supported the far right in Australia in 1970s-80s.

Open access article!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

One thing that I forgot to mention in the thread below, which might be of interest to UK scholars. Our article uses the literature of the demographics of support for the UK National Front in the 1970s-80s and compares it with its sister party in Australia. Some similarities, some differences!

YouTube video by China Drum - Topic Wuthering Heights

As we’re all chatting Wuthering Heights again, here is a criminally underrated cover of the Kate Bush classic

youtu.be/984hLFYh5vU?...

If it comes in hard copy, it is history! 😀

Here’s a thread I did earlier with some of our findings. The paper is open access, by the way!

bsky.app/profile/evan...

Cultural and Social History Researching Student Lives: Methodological and Theoretical Perspectives. Volume 23, Issue 1 of Cultural and Social History

The special issue of Cultural and Social History on “Researching Student Lives: Methodological and Theoretical Perspectives” (co-ed. w Georgina Brewis & Jodi Burkett) is live - yay! Several articles are OA :) Huge thanks to our contributors & the journal editors!
www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfcs20/2...

It’s often assumed the far right recruits from ‘white working class’ and there’s surprise some have ‘normal’ middle class jobs. @booklearning.bsky.social and I looked at who applied to join an Australian far right group in 1970s-80s to test this assumption.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Here’s a thread I did earlier with some of our findings. The paper is open access, by the way!

bsky.app/profile/evan...

It’s often assumed the far right recruits from ‘white working class’ and there’s surprise some have ‘normal’ middle class jobs. @booklearning.bsky.social and I looked at who applied to join an Australian far right group in 1970s-80s to test this assumption.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

One thing that I forgot to mention in the thread below, which might be of interest to UK scholars. Our article uses the literature of the demographics of support for the UK National Front in the 1970s-80s and compares it with its sister party in Australia. Some similarities, some differences!

Who Makes the Far Right? Exploring Membership Application Data of the National Front of Australia This paper addresses a problem for scholars examining the question of who supports far right political parties or movements. Due to the semi-clandestine or oppositional nature of far right groups, hi....

A long time in the making, @booklearning.bsky.social and I have published this article in AJPH on exploring the question of who joins far right political groups, using membership application forms for the National Front of Australia in the 1970s-80s. 🧵

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Did I mention the article was open access?!

Who Makes the Far Right? Exploring Membership Application Data of the National Front of Australia This paper addresses a problem for scholars examining the question of who supports far right political parties or movements. Due to the semi-clandestine or oppositional nature of far right groups, hi...

In conclusion, our article uses a small dataset to examine who joined the National Front of Australia in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which provides a great insight into far right support at a particular moment, which might challenge some assumptions.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

While many suggest that the far right in Australia, as well as elsewhere, has drawn its support from the 'white working class', looking at the NFA forms, we found that a combination of lower middle class, skilled working class, retirees and students were amongst the potential recruits.