James Watson is a historian at the Australian National University, where his doctoral thesis – a social history of the use of asbestos in Australia – won the Patrick Troy Memorial Prize. He previously worked as a paralegal in Sydney, where he attended the bedside testimonies of asbestos-disease sufferers and represented clients in court. His writing has appeared in History Australia and Labour History, and he is currently working on a biography of the geologist and Australian Museum director Robert Etheridge Jr. He lives in Canberra.





