Phillip is an historian of the Cold War with a special interest in the impact of communism, anti-communism and espionage on the politics and culture of Australia, Great Britain and the United States.

Phillip is a review editor of Labour History, was a guest editor of American Communist History, and is a research associate with the London School of Economics and Political Science Ideas Cold War Studies Program. He has received two fellowships from New York University to undertake research into the Cold War. He has also received numerous teaching and research awards, including:

  • Fulbright Scholarship
  • British Academy award
  • Vice-Chancellor’s Medal for Excellence in Research
  • Ann Hilda-Sainsbury Award for Teaching Excellence
  • Australian Awards for University Teaching (national finalist).

Areas of expertise

  • Cold War history
  • Communist Party history
  • Espionage and intelligence history

Contact details

phillip.deery@vu.edu.au

Recent publications

Phillip Deery has authored more than 100 scholarly publications in the fields of Cold War studies, intelligence and national security, labour movement history and Communist Party history. View more of Philip's publications.

Deery, P. (2024), ‘Vladimir Petrov: A Reappraisal’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 70, no. 1, pp. 1-18.

Deery, P. & Kimber, J. (2024), ‘Beyond the Red Shoe: Searching for Mrs Petrov’, Australian Journal of Biography and History, no. 8, pp. 49-65.

Deery, P. (2023), ‘The Unreliable Witness: Clarence Dakin, ASIO, and Espionage’, Labour History, no.125, pp. 187-96.

Deery, P. (2023), ‘A Community in Crisis: Dr Deery and the Healesville Hospital Dispute, 1961-62’, Victorian Historical Journal, Vol. 92, No. 2, pp. 473-96.

Deery, P. (2023), ‘“An Active and Conscious Agent?”: Ric Throssell and Soviet Espionage’, Labour History, no.124, pp. 89-109.

Deery, P. & Kimber, J. (2019), ‘“Bordering on Treason”? Sir Raphael Cilento and pre-World War II Fascism in Australia’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 65, no. 2 (Jun 2019), pp. 178-195.

Deery P. (2018), ‘“A Most Important Cadre”: The Infiltration of the Communist Party of Australia during the Cold War, Labour History, no. 115, 1-25

Deery P. (2018), ‘Listening for Subversion: The Bugging of the Communist Party, 1958-59’ Labour History, no. 115, pp. 167-73.

Deery, P. (2017), 'Love, Betrayal and the Cold War: An American Story’, American Communist History, Vol. 16, Nos. 1-2, pp. 65-87.

Deery, P., Milner L. (2015), ‘Political Theatre and the State, Melbourne and Sydney, 1936-1953’, History Australia, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 113-36.

Deery, P. (2015), ‘”Lock Up Holt, Throw Away Ky”: The Visit of Prime Minister Ky to Australia, 1967’, Labour History, No. 109, November, pp. 55-75.

Clohesy, L., Deery, P. (2015), ‘The Prime Minister and the Bomb: John Gorton, William Wentworth and the quest for an atomic Australia’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 61, No. 2, pp. 217-32.

Deery, P., Bongiorno, F. (2014), ‘Labor, Loyalty and Peace: Two Anzac Controversies of the 1920s’, Labour History, No. 106, May, pp. 205-228.

Deery, P. (2014), ‘Securing Justice? The Australian Campaign to save the Rosenbergs’, Journal of Australian Studies, Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 3-17.

Deery, P. & Fitzpatrick, S. (2024) (eds), Russians in Cold War Australia (Maryland, US: Rowman & Littlefield).

Deery, P. (2022), Spies and Sparrows: ASIO and the Cold War (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press)

Schrecker, E. & Deery, P. (2016), The Age of McCarthyism. A Brief History with Documents. Third Edition (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press).

Deery, P. & Kimber, J. (eds) (2015), Fighting Against War: Peace Activism in the Twentieth Century (Melbourne: Leftbank Press).

Deery, P. (2014) Red Apple: Communism and McCarthyism in Cold War New York (New York: Fordham University Press).

Deery, P. and Del Pero, M. (2011) Spiare e Tradire: Dietro le Quinte della Guerra Fredda [Espionage and Betrayal: Behind the Scenes of the Cold War] (Milan: Feltrinelli Press).

Kimber, J., Love, P. and Deery, P. (eds) (2007) Labour Traditions (Melbourne: Australian Society for the Study of Labour History).

Deery, P. (2022), ‘The Left and the International Arena: The Rosenberg Case’, in Michele Di Donato & Mathieu Fulla (eds) . The Left and the International Arena in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: A Transnational Political History(London: Bloomsbury).

Deery, P. (2021), ‘“Our No. 1 Spy”: Counter-subversion in Cold War Australia’, in Dennis Molinaro (ed.), The Bridge in the Park: The Five Eyes and Cold War Counterintelligence (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).

Deery , P.(2018), “Australian Communism in Crisis: 1956” in Jon Piccini, Evan Smith & Matthew Worley (eds), The Far Left in Australia since 1945 (London & New York: Routledge).

Deery, P. (2018), 'Post-Cold War Conflict: Historians, Espionage and American Communism’ in Judith Keene & Elizabeth Rechniewski (eds), Seeking Meaning, Seeking Justice in a Post-Cold War World (Leiden & Boston: Brill), pp. 43-61.

Deery, P. (2017), ‘American Communism’ in Norman Naimark, Sophie Quinn-Judge & Silvio Pons (eds), Cambridge History of Communism Volume II – The Socialist Camp and World Power 1941-1960s, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 642-66.

Deery, P. (2016), ‘Petrov, Vladimir Mikhailovich (1907–1991)’ and ‘Petrova, Evdokia Alekseevna (1914–2002), in Melanie Nolan (ed), Australian Dictionary of Biography. Volume 20 1991-2000 L-Z (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press)

Deery, P. (2009) '"These are not ordinary times": Political Persecution in Cold War America', in Bobbie Oliver (ed), Labour History in the New Century (Perth: Black Swan Press), pp. 111-20.

Deery, P. (2008) 'Scientist in Russia: Eric Ashby' in Sheila Fitzpatrick and Carolyn Rasmussen (eds), Political Tourists: Australian Travellers to the Soviet Union in the 1920s-1940s, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press), pp. 260-76.

Deery, P. (2007) '"There is no half way": Australia's Cold War at Home', in Deborah Gare and David Ritter (eds), Making Australian History: Perspectives on the past since 1788. (Melbourne: Thomson, 2007), pp. 460-7, 474-5.

Deery, P. (2019), ‘International Activism and the Struggle to Save the Rosenbergs’, 16th Biennial Labour History Conference, Perth, October

Kimber, J. & Deery, P. (2019), ‘The trauma and tragedy of a Cold War defection: Evdokia Petrov’, 16th Biennial Labour History Conference, Perth, October.

Deery, P. (2019), ‘The Left and the International Arena’, Sciences Po University, Paris, March.

Deery, P. (2019), ‘Espionage and Justice: The Rosenberg Case’, Boston University, Boston, March.

Deery, P. (2016), Keynote speaker, ‘Division and Discord in Cold War Australia: Communism and Anti-communism’, Divisions, Discord and Disputes in Tasmanian and Australian History, Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies 31st Annual Conference, University of Tasmania, September.

Deery, P. (2015), Opening address: ‘Revisiting the Cold War: Historians, Communism and Espionage’, international conference, Judging the Past in a Post-Cold War World, University of Sydney, September.

Deery, P. & L. Milner (2015), ‘“Insidious Propaganda”: the New Theatre and State Repression’, 14th Biennial Labour History Conference, Melbourne, February.

Deery, P. (2014), ‘The Workers’ Theatre Movement: Local and Global, 1935-1955’, 45th Annual Conference of the International Association of Labour History Institutions, New York University, New York, October.

Deery, P. (2014), ‘How the Left Challenges American Exceptionalism’, AFEA (French Association of American Studies) Congress; theme: The USA: Models, Counter-Models, The End of Models?, Sorbonne University, Paris, May.

Appearances in the media

Professor Deery is a regular commentator on Australian political and social history. In 2019, he was interviewed for the SBS documentary series ‘Every Family Has A Secret’ (episode 3); for the feature documentary film ‘Ablaze’ (on Aboriginal activist Bill Onus); and by the Jean Jaures Foundation, Paris, on the Australian Labor Party. He has also been a radio guest on Late Night Live (ABC), WNYC (New York) and PBS (New York).

Postgraduate research supervision

Completions (principal supervisor): 16 PhD, 5 MA

Current supervision (principal supervisor): 3 PhD