Charles Bean. Ross Coulthart. 2015.

Charles Bean’s wartime journalism and postwar official history helped forge the nation-defining legend of the Australian diggers on the battlefields of Gallipoli and Western Europe. Given extraordinary access to the Allied commanders and the battle frontlines, Bean often chanced death beside the troops in the trenches, and privately diarised the awful truth of the carnage, the leadership failures, the tragic mistakes and the needless waste of so many young lives. But did Bean tell Australia the whole story of what he knew?

In this fresh new biography Ross Coulthart explores the man behind the legend and his lasting legacy.