Dr Peter McMahon is a lecturer in sustainable development and co-director of the WA2020 Project at the School of Sustainability, Murdoch University.
Peter McMahon worked at a number of occupations, including labourer, shop assistant, factory worker and tractor driver, before picking up a couple of degrees at Murdoch University. He was also an activist for peace and social justice in that time. More recently he has worked in federal and state politics as a staff member or consultant.
Until recently he taught Australian studies, politics, futures studies and international political economy at Murdoch University, mostly for the Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy. He has published in various journals and his first book, Global Control: Information Technology and Globalisation since 1845, was recently published By Edward Elgar in the UK. He is currently at work on his second book whose working title is Total Control: Technology, War and Global Development.
He supports the Eagles and Dockers in the AFL, Claremont in the WAFL, Perth Glory in the soccer, the Western Warriors in the Sheffield Shield (sic) and any Australian sporting team against the rest of the world. But he also hates what business is doing to sport.
He loves good fiction, especially work by Thomas Pynchon, Robertson Davies, Gore Vidal, William Gibson and Ursula LeGuin, and he thinks 2001: A Space Odyssey was the best movie ever made, especially now that it can be viewed as an alternate history narrative. He is mostly bored to death by current television and he wishes that the record companies would put some money into real talent instead of the rubbish that dominates the music charts. He spends as much time as he can walking or cycling around the Swan River or in the country around Perth.
