I have just got my copy of Gracelyn Smallwood's book Indigenist Critical Realism: Human Rights and First Australians' Wellbeing Routledge: London 2015. It is a compulsive read. In some ways this is an unusual book. It is both academic and polemical. The words “fiery” and “brilliant” describe it to a tee.

Professor Smallwood is an Indigenous Australian based at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. She is a long time activist and fighter for the rights of her people. The book documents her personal struggle to get an education. She became a qualified nurse working especially in AIDS prevention.

Her book also addresses some of the major controversies associated with Aboriginal Australians. This has led her into direct conflict with leading Indigenous personalities such as Marcia Langton, the former Trotskyist, and Noel Pearson the champion of neo-liberal “solutions” for Indigenous problems. She also take a good swipe at Professor Peter Sutton who in his book The Politics of Suffering (2009) blamed Indigenous culture for the state of Indigenous communities.

Neither does Gracelyn miss two other leading figures of the Right, Gary Johns and Keith Windschuttle. Her barely concealed rage at their attacks on the rights of her people make this one of the most effective ripostes to the reactionary propaganda that Johns and Windschuttle have unleashed on Indigenous Australia.

Gracelyn is a marvellous polemicist. Reading her full on assaults is like watching a Jacobean tragedy – the stage is littered with the bodies of her opponents. She takes no prisoners and good on her.

In theoretical terms, Gracelyn draws upon Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism to ground her plea for more human rights for her people. This of course has to be placed in the Australian context where the demand for human rights puts one into direct conflict with the neo-liberal state.

For me, one of the most interesting part of this book was the careful deconstruction of the notions of Frontier and Post –Frontier. Drawing upon Bhaskar, Gracelyn points out that the Frontier was an underlying relationship or tendency which could re-emerge given facilitating conditions. She uses this to explain the brutal death in custody of Mulrunji on Palm Island and the subsequent not guilty verdict on the man who was accused of his murder, Police Sergeant Hurley.

For those who are interested in Indigenous struggles against the impact of colonialism this is a must read.