This is a complex book from an anthropologist who has carried out research and established close relationships with indigenous people for four decades. Peter Sutton has lived through and participated in the Aboriginal protest movement from the early 1970s onwards, done extensive studies in support of securing tradition-based rights in land, and faced firsthand the well-publicised tragedies of many indigenous communities.

Contrary to what some of Sutton’s critics say, this is no superficial rendering of post-colonial race relations. The author acknowledges the apt demise of the ‘old culturally oppressive, chauvinist and racist [government] policies of the control era’, the ‘arrogance of many manifestations of assimilationism in years gone by’, and the major educational achievement of overturning simplistic colonial stereotypes of Aboriginal people as ‘savages’. However, he is also concerned about silences in policy and related discussions, which derive from fear that stereotypes about ‘primitive societies’ and victim blaming will arise again. If the fear is justified, the author’s point is that this is nevertheless no excuse for ‘turning away from the partially cultural and “traditional” underpinnings of disadvantage, and from looking clear-eyed at successful interventions’, particularly in relation to the remote communities where health and welfare problems are so entrenched.