Ross McMullin at the ASSLH 19th Biennial Conference

For Australia, a new nation with a relatively small population, the death of 60,000 soldiers during World War I was catastrophic. It is hardly surprising, then, that Australians evaluating the consequences of the conflict have tended to focus primarily on the numbing number of losses — on the sheer quantity of all those countrymen who did not return.

That there must have been extraordinary individuals among them has been implicitly understood, but these special Australians are unknown today. This book seeks to retrieve their stories and to fill the gaps in our collective memory. Farewell, Dear People contains ten extended biographies of young men who exemplified Australia’s gifted lost generation of World War I.

Among them are accounts of an internationally acclaimed medical researcher; a military officer described by his brigadier as potentially an Australian Kitchener; a rugby international who became an esteemed administrator and a rising Labor star; an engineer who excelled on Mawson’s Antarctic mission; a visionary vigneron and community leader who was renowned for successful winemaking at an unusually young age; a Western Australian Rhodes scholar assured of a shining future in the law and/or politics; a Tasmanian footballer who dazzled at the highest level; and a budding architect from Melbourne’s best-known creative dynasty who combined an endearing personality with his family’s flair for writing and drawing.

This magisterial book tells their stories for the first time. In doing so, it enriches the story of Australia immeasurably.

WINNER OF THE 2024 AGE BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE FOR NONFICTION

Acclaimed historian and biographer Ross McMullin has again combined prodigious research and narrative flair in this sequel to Farewell, Dear People, the winner of multiple awards including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History.

Life So Full of Promise, his second multi-biography about Australia’s lost generation of World War I, features a collection of interwoven stories set in that defining era.

The rich cast includes a talented barrister whose outstanding leadership enabled a momentous victory in France; an eminent newspaper editor who kept his community informed about the war while his sons were in the trenches; an energetic soldiers’ mother who became a political activist and a Red Cross dynamo; an admired farmer whose unit was rushed to the rescue in the climax of the conflict; the close sisters from Melbourne who found their lives transformed; a popular doctor who was more fervently mourned than any other Australian casualty; and a bohemian Scandinavian blonde who disrupted one of Sydney’s best-known families.

A feature of the book is its coverage of cricket and cricketers of the era. It reveals the untold story of a keen all-rounder who was chosen in an Australian team to tour England, but surprisingly did not go. There is also a superb biography of a brilliant yet practically unknown cricketer whose stunning feat has never been matched. Other prominent characters include the most versatile top-level sportsman Australia has ever known, and a Test prospect whose violent postwar death shocked the nation.

The storytelling is superlative, illuminating and profoundly moving.

Pompey Elliott was a remarkable Australian. During the Great War he was a charismatic, controversial, and outstandingly successful military leader. An accomplished tactician and ‘the bravest of the brave’, he was renowned for never sending anyone anywhere he was not prepared to go himself. As a result, no Australian general was more revered by those he led or more famous outside his own command.

A man of unimpeachable integrity and unwavering commitment, he was also forthright and volatile. His tempestuousness generated a host of anecdotes that amused his men and disconcerted his superiors.

Yet surprisingly little had been written about Elliott until the original edition of this book appeared in 2002. Now in a new format and with a foreword by Les Carlyon, this comprehensive, deeply researched biography tells Elliott’s fascinating story. It vividly examines Elliott’s origins and youth, his peacetime careers as a lawyer and politician, and his achievements — as well as the controversies he aroused during his years as a soldier.

Ross McMullin’s masterly work retrieves a significant Australian from undeserved obscurity. It also judiciously reassesses notable battles he influenced — including the Gallipoli Landing, Lone Pine, Fromelles, Polygon Wood, and Villers-Brettoneux — and illuminates numerous aspects of Australia’s experiences during his lifetime, particularly the often-overlooked period of the aftermath to the Great War.

Hundreds of Australian first-person narratives of World War I have been published, but none more riveting than this one.

The wartime letters and diaries of Pompey Elliott, Australia’s most famous fighting general, are exceptionally forthright. They are also remarkably illuminating about his volatile emotions. Pompey not only wrote frankly about what happened to him and the men he was commanding; he was also frank about what he felt about both. Having arranged a no-secrets pact with his wife for their correspondence before he left Australia in 1914, he adhered to that agreement throughout the conflict.

Moreover, Pompey expressed himself with vivid candour in his diaries and other correspondence. He wrote rapidly and fluently, with fertile imagery, a flair for simile, and an engaging turn of phrase. His extraordinary letters to his young children turned even the Western Front into a bedtime story.

Pompey was prominent in iconic battles and numerous controversies. He was wounded at the Gallipoli landing, and four of his men were awarded the Victoria Cross for conspicuous bravery at Lone Pine. No one was more instrumental than Pompey in turning looming defeat into stunning victory at both Polygon Wood and Villers–Bretonneux. No Australian general was more revered by those he led or more famous outside his own command.

Ross McMullin, the author of the award-winning and best-selling biography Pompey Elliott, has collected Pompey’s words from a variety of sources and shaped them into a compelling narrative. This book will transform our awareness of Pompey's importance in the dramatic final year of World War I.

Will Dyson (1880–1938) was a brilliant and versatile artist, and much more besides. His prodigious talents struggled to find a niche in Australia, but he burst into prominence with cartoons of extraordinary vigour and resource on the London Daily Herald. These whole-page cartoons with wordy, witty captions were revered by workers and intellectuals alike.

Dyson was also a talented writer, a scintillating humourist and an arresting speaker. A stunning overnight success, he was described as the most famous Australian in the world.

In 1916 Dyson became Australia's first official war artist. His drawings of profound empathy and sympathy remain a unique record of the Western Front experience. Once again he complemented his art with exquisite writing.

Returning to Australia in 1925, he took up etching to international acclaim, confirming that whatever he did he did well.

Absorbing, illuminating, and lavishly illustrated, this is a fascinating story of the life and times of a remarkable and under-recognised Australian.

A revised and updated edition of award-winning historian Ross McMullin’s acclaimed history of the Australian Labor Party — an entertaining, action-packed, warts-and-all narrative full of illuminating pen-portraits and vivid anecdotes.

The story is told through the people who made it. All Labor’s prime ministers feature — Watson, Fisher, Hughes, Scullin, Curtin, Chifley, Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Rudd, Gillard, and Albanese. The sweeping storytelling blends their governments’ achievements and tribulations with those of ALP state branches, conflicts over organisation and policy, emotional highs and lows, and intrigue and intimidation behind the scenes.

Labor’s most spectacular controversies are also examined — three devastating ruptures, the Whitlam government’s dismissal, and the fierce Hawke–Keating and Rudd–Gillard–Rudd leadership contests.

The Light on the Hill also illuminates the notable families, the lost talents, and the ups and downs for Labor’s true believers since 1891. It covers Doc Evatt and Don Dunstan, Susan Ryan and Carmen Lawrence, ‘Windy Mick’ and ‘Happy Jack’, ‘Red Ted’ and ‘Stabber Jack’, ‘Electric Eric’ and the ‘Killer of Santa Claus’ — they’re all here. So are Labor’s triumphs, notably the 2025 Albanese electoral landslide.

Prodigiously researched, captivating, and powerful, The Light on the Hill is the most authoritative and monumental account of Labor’s rich history.