Broken Spear: The Untold Story of Black Tom Birch, the Man Who Sparked Australia's Bloodiest War: By Robert Cox. Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2021. Pp. 324. A$39.95 paper.

Cox is aware of the limitations of using George Augustus Robinson as a source for the inner life of Kickerterpoller and is generally sensitive to the difficulty of interpreting a man whose behaviour shifted over time. There is another element to the subtitle of the book, as Cox claims Kickerterpoller "sparked Australia's bloodiest war". Broken Spear: The Untold Story of Black Tom Birch, the Man Who Sparked Australia's Bloodiest War: By Robert Cox. [Extracted from the article]