‘With this superb biography, McMullin has resurrected a great Australian and put him back on the pedestal where he belongs.’

David Cooney (The Weekly Times)

‘The story of this talented, likeable, thoroughly political man is well worth knowing on many fronts ... [an] absorbing book.’

Ian Topliss (Australian Book Review)

‘Dyson was a radical genius, social gadfly, committed war artist, great cartoonist and one of the best-known Australians in the world. There’s all of that and more in this book.’

Lindsay Foyle (The Weekend Australian)

‘Dyson is certainly deserving of the effort, not only because of the quality of his work but because his biography illuminates so many of the best and worst aspects of Australian life during the early 20th century.’

John McDonald (Sydney Morning Herald)

A ‘thoroughly researched and impressively detailed biography.’

Christopher Bantick (The Mercury Magazine)

‘McMullin’s portrait should help restore the reputation of the man once described as the most famous Australian in the world.’

(The AFR Magazine)

‘Ross McMullin’s stunning biography entertains, educates and entices the reader to ponder what heights our nation might have reached if we had nurtured and hung on to men such as Dyson ... The passion and intelligence with which McMullin traces Dyson’s career ... allows readers to feel that they have in some way encountered Dyson as an artist and a man. This is what biography should be: not just a pallid regurgitation of the facts of a life, but an engagement with that life.’

Rebecca Edwards (Courier Mail)

'McMullin has written an enjoyable and absorbing account of the life of an enjoyable and absorbing Australian.'

David Brooks (Flinders Journal of History and Politics, vol 23, 2006)

'Ross McMullin is arguably Australia's most formidable historian ... [Will Dyson] is an outstanding work ... a first-class biography of an extraordinary Australian ... the life of Will Dyson makes truly inspiring reading.'

Stephen Loosley (Sunday Telegraph)

'What is truly extraordinary about this book is how it shows that the revolutionary, antiestablishmentarian spirit of this country has deep and strong artistic and intellectual roots.'

Brendan McCallum (Spark)

'The book is handsomely produced with cartoons and sketches often given generous full-page treatment unlike the cramped space — sometimes only a single column — Dyson was afforded by his editors. It also contains an excellent range of photographs of family (both the Dysons and the Lindsays), friends, the Front and Dyson's passage through life.'

Bernard Whimpress (JAS Review of Books)

'a very impressive book. It not only brings to life a remarkably talented individual ... it also recreates the era from which he emerged. Jimi Hendrix famously called the blues "the reflection of the world". McMullin shows that biography, at its best, can be something similar.'

Jeff Sparrow (overland)

'McMullin's book does Dyson credit. Its biographical style with footnotes neatly tucked out of sight makes for easy and pleasurable reading, and the illustrations throughout are a treat.'

Catherine Speck (Australian Historical Studies)

'a nuanced and thorough portrait ... Will Dyson is a biography, a political history, a World War I history and a partial history of Australian art and literature.'

Cathy Wilcox (Labour History)