This 411-page epic is a 2023 release by David Marr, who is described by Wikipedia as an 'Australian journalist, author, and progressive social and political commentator'; i.e. not an academic historian.
The book is both a family history that exposes the colonial era lives and actions of some of his ancestors, and in a more general sense is an examination of frontier race relations and the associated politics.
It traces the family line through to relatives who were prominent in the 19th century conquest of Queensland through their service in the Native Mounted Police force, and seeks to expose their crimes against the Aboriginal population, and more generally, the appalling treatment of Australia's indigenous peoples by squatters and their employees and successive colonial governments.
Marr resides firmly in the 'massacreist' camp. The book contains numerous maps which represent all fatal encounters referred to in the text with a skull symbol. In the few instances where he describes skirmishes he has a tendency to trivialise them by dismissing written accounts as 'wild-west adventures'.
One of Marr's principal advisors was Jonathan Richards, who takes the extreme view that there were no fights at all; he believes that every encounter in which Aboriginal people died was a massacre, despite frequently using the word 'war', such as in the title of his 2008 history of the NMP, 'The Secret War'.
I can recommend this book as a highly detailed and colourful narrative history full of avaricious, pompous, self-serving, and often callous, murderous 'gentlemen', and sometimes outraged and well-meaning journalists, religious figures, and administrators.
As far as I know it's the most detailed biography to date of the Uhr brothers, who were central figures in the NMP and the settlement/conquest of northern Australia.
A long as it's balanced with the writings of researchers with a deeper understanding of frontier conflict, such as Ray Kerkhove (who was consulted by Marr) and Stephen Gapps, it has a lot to offer in comprehending the flow of events on the advancing frontiers of colonial Australia.
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