Dr Tom Heenan

Lecturer, Contemporary Australia Program

PhD (Mon)

Contact details | Research interests | Publications

Latest Work

From Traveller to Traitor: The Life of Wilfred Burchett

This is the first scholarly biography of the controversial Australian foreign correspondent, Wilfred Burchett. The book explores the truth behind Burchett’s reports from his travels on the communist side the Cold War frontier. Drawing on Australian, British and American archival material, Heenan exposes the insubstantial nature of the allegations of treachery against Burchett. The book casts new light on an extraordinary Australian whose story is one of the greatest political scandals in the nation’s history.. View details and purchase book on Amazon.

Tom believes that learning should be informative and a fun experience. He likes nothing more than taking students on the road. His students sample life in Outback New South Wales. He introduces them to the mining community around Broken Hill, and the endless expanses of Eldee Station and the Mundi Mundi Plain. They ride camels, visit the ghost town of Silverton and meet the indigenous custodians at Lake Mungo National Park. Students explore this and other Australian places and issues as part of Tom’s Australian Idols: Exploring Contemporary Australia unit.

Tom also coordinates the Centre’s undergraduate teaching program. As well as Australian Idols, he teaches across the Centre’s sports units – Sport and Society, A World of Sport and Australian Sports Writing – and the international relations unit, Australia in a Globalizing World.

Research interests

Tom is also a respected researcher. He is the author of the controversial biography, From Traveller to Traitor: the Life of Wilfred Burchett (Melbourne University Press, 2006). He has also written on political economy, US management history and labour relations, and was a contributor to the recent edition of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. With Professor Chris Nyland, Tom was awarded the ‘Best Business History Paper’ at the 2004 Academy Management Conference in New Orleans. Available for doctoral and masters supervision, Tom is currently writing a history of Australia-India cricket.

His other research interests include:

• the Cold War,
• the Australia security state,
• international relations,
• indigenous Australia,
• sporting history,
• globalization and
• the crime fiction of Arthur Upfield.

Publications

Burchett, Wilfred (1911-1983) Australian Dictionary of Biography vol 17, Melbourne University Press, 2007, pp.157-159.

Hutton, Geoffrey, Wilfred (1908-1985) Australian Dictionary of Biography vol 17, Melbourne University Press, 2007, pp.568.

From Traveller to Traitor. The Life of Wilfred Burchett, Melbourne University Press, 2006.

“Mary Van Kleeck, Taylorism & the Control of Knowledge”, Management Decision, December 2005 (with Professor Chris Nyland).

“William Thompson & Anna Doyle Wheeler: A Marriage of Minds on Jeremy Bentham's Doorstep", in The Status of Women in Political Economy , Edward Elgar Pub., UK , 2003.