Charles Bean

This award-winning biography is a long overdue reassessment of the iconic Australian war correspondent.

Charles Bean's wartime reports and photographs mythologised the Australian soldier and helped spawn the notion that the Anzacs achieved something nation-defining on the shores of Gallipoli and the battlefields of western Europe. In his quest to get the truth, Bean often faced death beside the Diggers in the trenches of Gallipoli and the Western Front - and saw more combat than many.

But did Bean tell Australia the whole story of what he knew? In this timely new biography, Ross Coulthart investigates the untold story behind Bean's jouralistic dilemma - his struggle to tell Australia the truth but also the pressure he felt to support the war and boost morale at home by suppressing what he'd seen.

About the Author

A reporter with 60 Minutes, Ross Coulthart is one of Australia's leading investigative journalists. Winner of a Logie and five Walkley journalism awards including the Gold Walkley, Ross is also the author of the magnificent Lost Diggers. Like Charles Bean, Ross Coulthart studied law, became a journalist and has covered conflicts in hostile war zones such as East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. He has always admired Bean's courage and scrupulous honesty, and now he examines the real story of the man who was one of Australia's earliest embedded war reporters.