Comment by Professor Robert Manne, LaTrobe University Melbourne
“Persons of Interest is a fascinating study of ASIO's work of surveillance during the Cold War, including some groundbreaking interviews with disaffected operatives and agents. But it is far more than that. By focussing on a series of radicals who were the subject of intense ASIO attention--Frank Hardy, Gary Foley, Albert Langer and the Milliss's, father and son--Haydn Keenan has managed to provide us with the most accurate and illuminating history of the far left in Australia during the first three decades after the Second World War.
This is the kind of fine-grained study we need if we wish to understand the dreams, fantasies, follies and disillusionments of those who struggled to build in Australia what they thought would be "a better world". For those who wish to understand the largely forgotten history of Australia's post-war revolutionaries, Persons of Interest ought not to be missed.” Prof Robert Manne Latrobe University November 2013