MG Smith was the product of decendants of English army officers and merchants, and a coloured nurse who died in childbirth. His station in Jamaican society in the 1920's and 30's was secure. He won a scholarship to Jamaica College, where he distinguished himself as a gifted scholar. There his talent for poetry was nurtured, and became a deep passion. From this point, Hall presents the ambivalence that stayed with MG Smith all his life: the pull towards academia versus a total commitment to the poetic muse.

MG left Jamaica in the early 1940s to study English Literature at Canada's McGill University. He soon joined the Canadian Army and served briefly in Europe. While he may have been a good soldier, his friend and fellow officer Keith "Slim" Saunders says his mind was never with it. Many nights in a dug-out he would spend time reading or writing by candlelight, and on one occasion, reciting to me Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained I can still hear him telling me of Blue Mountain Peak, of Jamaica rum, and of the people.... he was not a fighter, but a man of peace."

MG soon left McGill and switched to the University College, London. After a brief flirtation with law which he concluded "was often less motivated by a search for truth than by a search for reputation", he settled on Social Anthropology for his first degree. While in England, he met his wife, Mary Morrison, who was also studying Anthropology at the London School of Economics. And so began a lifetime collaboration between the two, nurtured by a mutual intellectual curiousity, a shared commitment to academic rigour, and a genuine affection for each other which produced three sons.

Hall's account of MG's career is riveting. The tone is almost gossipy, like someone recounting ancedotes of a close friend's life. The narrative shifts from the author's reflections, and quotes from MG's papers, to reminiscenses by peers and academics. The Smith's sojourn in Nigeria among the Hausa people produced groundbreaking work on the economic systems, family patterns and local customs which is yet to be replicated. This was the basis for his doctorate which he earned in 1950. His fieldwork methods were not always orthodox, and Hall paints a picure of a man who was both sensitive and belligerent, arrogant and humble. After encountering resistance from the Hausa farmers in searching for accurate information on crop yields, "if (MG) could not gain the people's confidence as anthropologists are supposed to do, he would become authoritative and demand information".

MG returned to Jamaica in 1951, but his homecoming was not an easy one. He taught Sociology for seven years at the newly established University College of the West Indies. As MG confided to his friend and mentor Edna Manley, " I promised Edna that I would try to be happier, less intolerant, harsh and unkind and try to adjust to Jamaica again." Nor did he suffer fools gladly, as a young Gleaner reporter discovered when trying to interview him "The Gleaner rang up. A reporter interviewed me over the phone. ÔWhat school did you go to?' I said I was not interested in The Gleaner and put down the phone." MG continued with his pioneering field work in the Caribbean that laid the basis for his plural society thesis, which was heavily criticised. He was commissioned by the then Norman Manley government to carry out a survey on rural labour in Jamaica, which Manley himself ranked as "the most detailed survey of basic economic conditions in rural areas that has ever been undertaken". However, bound copies sat undistributed in the Government Printing Office for several months, as no price had been set for them, prompting MG to respond "they're lying there for the white ants to eat". The tiresome bureaucracy of the new university discouraged MG further. He was rather shabbily treated by the then UCWI administration who downplayed his contribution. While policy makers squabbled over administrative and staffing details for a new Department of Sociology, MG was rapidly winning international recognition for his ever growing and formidable academic reputation, being wooed by UCLA and London Universities to join their faculties.

Throughout the book, there is a deep sense of MG Smith's divided loyalties between staying in Jamaica and excelling overseas. Douglas Hall presents the facts with such candour that the reader has to admit, albeit regretfully, that colonial Jamaica was not ready for MG Smith.

After leaving Jamaica for a second time, MG's academic career spanned several years at Yale University and University College, London, while he collected numerous awards for academic excellence along the way. Perhaps the most intriguing part of the book centres on his return to Jamaica in the 1970's as a special adviser to the Michael Manley-led PNP government. MG served with limitless energy, sitting on several Government committees and prepared numerous position papers on issues such as land reform, taxation, rural development, crime and national security, land settlement, trade unionism, the bauxite industry, local government reform, among others. But this involvement proved to be another source of dissapointment. As a colleague noted "MG's total inability to pay homage to the cloth of authority, his lack of ready deference to others in ministerial or other high position, and his frank appraisal of their aims and proposals, often earned their srong dissaproval"

The style of the book is part novel, part commentary and part research report. The inclusion of verbatim opinions about MG by his contemporaries gives the narrative freshness and immediacy. The entries by MG himself demonstrate the ambivalence he felt towards Jamaica, his chosen profession and his passion for poetry. They also reveal a man of amazing intellect, with a rare and elegant gift for language. His poems presented poignantly highlight his restlessness and dissapointment very well, as in:

And the trees
Have themselves at last
With leaves
Talking of stars
Stand silent like the sky
In the blown bubble
Of time's pure vase
Reality finding
Into Mona.

Little is said about the private world of MG Smith and his family. That is a pity. The tone throughout, although detailed, remains detached, befitting an intensely private man and scholar. The book is one of two in a Biography Series recently launched by The Press, UWI, both edited by Douglas Hall, and is available at the offices of The Press on the Mona campus.