Mark Peel teaches in the school of historical studies at Monash University.

He is the author of Good Times, Hard Times: The Past and the Future of Elizabeth (1995), A Little History of Australia (1997), and the Lowest Rung: Voices of Australian Poverty (2003), as well as chapters and articles in the areas of social justice, disadvantage, welfare, poverty, gender and class.

His most recent project examines the encounters between social workers and their clients in Melbourne, London and three American cities during the 1920s and 1930s. With the working title of Miss Cutler and the Case of the Reincarnated Horse, the book explores the different ways in which social work changed from a form of detection to a form of advocacy.