Each one of us is a maker of history, either by what we do or do not. And history surprises. Ask any of us teenagers who woke up one morning in November 1964 and found that we were potential military conscripts.

Cold War Kid is an activist’s account of the period 1945-1972. Rowan Cahill tells the story of how a would-be poet and beachcomber solo-sailor was conscripted during the first call-up in 1965 and morphed to become prominent in opposing Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War and conscription.

The action begins in the back roads of Sydney’s North Shore amongst remnant orchards, dairies, and bushland, and ends in a rural bolt hole, the author criminalised, the threat of imprisonment constant, and experimenting with writing history from below. We visit Sydney University as a site of radicalism and the Sydney waterfront, where the author worked with the militant Seamen’s Union of Australia.

Activists will find hope and encouragement in this book describing agency and the development of resistance against overwhelming odds that helped end Australia’s involvement in an illegal war, ended conscription, and brought an end to twenty-three years of conservative government.

"Rowan sees the militaristic thread through Australia’s history, the violence this history imposes on us all, and our individual and collective spiritual struggle to overcome it.” - Hannah Forsyth, Historian.

The book will be launched in Wollongong, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Newcastle and Brisbane beginning in May. Stay tuned for details.