Alistair Thomson is Professor of History at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and Director of the Monash Institute for Public History. His research and teaching explores the ways in which different kinds of life story evidence can illuminate the past and its meanings in the present lives of individuals and society.

Alistair Thomson made his name internationally in the mid-nineties for his research in oral history and his original theory of 'composing memory' based on his interviews with Australian war veterans. Today he is one of pathbreakers within the new field of 'public history'.

He is project leader for the ‘Australian Generations’ Oral History Project about generational differences and the notion of ‘family’ in times of social, technical and environmental changes, from Baby Boomers to Generations X and Ys.

Short CV

In 2007 Professor of History and Director of the Institute for Public History, Monash University in Melbourne

Former Professor of Oral History at the University of Sussex, Director of the Centre for Continuing Education and joint Director of the Centre for Life History Research

Former Trustee of the Mass-Observation Archive

Former President of the International Oral History Association

MA and PhD. at University of Sussex

BA in Arts at Monash University, Melbourne in 1982

Important Books

• Anzac Memories: Living With the Legend (Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1994)
• Through the Joy of Learning: Diary of a Thousand Adult Learners (Leicester, NIACE, 1996, with Pam Coare)
• The Oral History Reader (London & New York, Routledge, 1998 and 2006, with Rob Perks)
• Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2005, with Jim Hammerton)
• Moving Stories: an intimate history of four women across two countries (Sydney, UNSW Press and Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2011)
• Oral History and Photography (New York, Palgrave, 2011, with Alexander Freund)