Rowan Cahill (born 1945) is an Australian radical historian and journalist, with a background as a teacher and farmhand, who variously worked for the trade union movement as a rank and file activist, delegate and publicist. Biography Rowan Cahill was educated in state schools, his secondary schooling taking place at Normanhurst Boys' High School (NSW). He is a graduate of Sydney University, the University of New England, and Wollongong University. During the Vietnam War he was a conscientious objector, and was prominent in the anti-war, student protest, and New Left movements of the period, primarily as a publicist and communicator. Formative journalistic influences during the 1960s were gained on the Sydney University student newspaper Honi Soit under the editorships of Hall Greenland and Keith Windschuttle. In 1967 Cahill was a founder of the radical and innovative Sydney Free University (1967–1972); between 1969–1973, he was a member of the editorial board of Australian Left Review (ALR), a bi-monthly journal of theory and practice published by the Communist Party of Australia. During this period, ALR had a pioneering role in introducing the work of Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) to Australian intellectual and political audiences. Beginning in 1967, Cahill was placed under surveillance by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). From 1970 to 1972, Cahill was employed by the militant Seamen's Union of Australia (SUA) as a journalist and historian. There he was influenced by SUA leader Eliot V. Elliott and by Della Elliott, editor of the union's monthly journal, the Seamen's Journal. In 1969 he first met leftist journalist and historian Rupert Lockwood, editor of the Maritime Worker, journal of the Waterside Workers' Federation; Lockwood subsequently became a significant influence on Cahill's approach to journalism and to his understanding of history. Following completion of the SUA assignment, Cahill's working life ranged from teaching in the former technical education and prison systems of NSW, and in the secondary school system, to freelance journalism and writing, and to agricultural labouring. In 2007, he began working as a part-time teaching academic at the University of Wollongong (NSW), where he is currently an Honorary Fellow with the Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts. Author Cahill has been widely published in socialist, trade union, academic and mainstream publications; he has written numerous pamphlets and booklets, and is the author or co-author of six books. His first book was The Seamen's Union of Australia, 1872–1972: