Clive Hamilton personifies the Australian progressive “public intellectual”. He’s a prolific author of opinion articles and books, concerned “to make a difference in the world” by persuading people to engage with “powerful ideas”.
His memoir describes almost 40 years of activism. The tone is often confessional: he admits to an introvert’s terror at electioneering and a white progressive’s anxiety about what to say to Indigenous people. Despite this, Provocateur is most of all a narrative of “ideas in action”, embodied by one individual.
