“Ross McMullin is one of Australia’s leading historians. This book shows his skills in so many different ways. He shows himself to be a sympathetic and skilled sports historian. He is also a skilled social historian dealing adeptly with the complexities of family, of community, of love, of boys growing to maturity, of all the arrangements of Australian society in the early years of the twentieth century.

He also writes so well about battle, one of the hardest challenges a writer can face … His account of the battle for Pozieres ridge where Doch Mackay died is a wonderfully clear account of a battle that was so dreadfully confused and profoundly difficult to step through …

Long though this book is, reading it will repay the effort in spades. Readers will appreciate the prodigious research which underlines it. They will marvel at McMullin’s skill as a writer … Not only was the nation denied its potential leaders — parents, wives and girlfriends were denied those around whom their lives revolved …

Life So Full of Promise is Australian history at its very best.”