A Concise History Of New Zealand

New Zealand was the last major landmass, other than Antarctica, to be settled by humans. The story of this rugged and dynamic land is beautifully narrated, from its origins in Gondwana some 80 million years ago to the twenty-first century. Philippa Mein Smith highlights the effects of the country's smallness and isolation, from its late settlement by Polynesian voyagers and colonisation by Europeans - and the exchanges that made these people Maori and Pakeha - to the dramatic struggles over land and recent efforts to manage global forces. A Concise History of New Zealand places New Zealand in its global and regional context. It unravels key moments - the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the Anzac landing at Gallipoli, the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior - showing their role as nation-building myths and connecting them with the less dramatic forces, economic and social, that have shaped contemporary New Zealand.

The story of this rugged and dynamic land is beautifully narrated, from its origins in Gondwana to the twenty-first century.

With its closest neighbor some 1,200 miles away, New Zealand is one of the most geographically isolated countries in the world. Its remoteness led to its relatively late settlement. Brooking traces New Zealand from its earliest Maori settlers to issues in 2003, covering intertribal relations, the effects of European contact, the challenges of globalization, and more. The volume includes a timeline of historical events, biographical entries of notable people in the history of New Zealand, a glossary of Maori terms, and a bibliographic essay. With its closest neighbor some 1,200 miles away, New Zealand is one of the most geographically isolated countries in the world. Its remoteness led to its relatively late settlement. Brooking traces New Zealand from its earliest Maori settlers to issues in 2003, covering intertribal relations, the effects of European contact, the challenges of globalization, and more. The volume includes a timeline of historical events, biographical entries of notable people in the history of New Zealand, a glossary of Maori terms, and a bibliographic essay. This concise, engagingly written volume is ideal for students and general interest readers seeking information on New Zealand's history.

New Zealand was the last country in the world to be discovered and settled by humankind. It was also the first to introduce full democracy. Between those events, and in the century that followed the franchise, the movements and the conflicts of human history have been played out more intensively and more rapidly in New Zealand than anywhere else on Earth. The Penguin History of New Zealand, a new book for a new century, tells that story in all its colour and drama. The narrative that emerges in an inclusive one about men and women, Maori and Pakeha. It shows that British motives in colonising New Zealand were essentially humane; and that Maori, far from being passive victims of a 'fatal impact', coped heroically with colonisation and survived by selectively accepting and adapting what Western technology and culture had to offer. This book, a triumphant fruit of careful research, wide reading and judicious assessment, was an unprecedented best-seller from the time of its first publication in 2003.

Completely revised and updated. Chapters have been rewritten. Also added in a substantial new chapter on contemporary Maori and Pacific Island painting, as well as an acknowledgement of the coming wave of Asian artists.

Now in paper This immensely readable book, full of drama and humor as well as scholarship, is a watershed in the writing of New Zealand history. In making many new assertions and challenging many historical myths, it seeks to reinterpret our approach to the past. Given New Zealand's small population, short history, and great isolation, the history of the archipelago has been saddled with a reputation for mundanity. According to James Belich, however, it is just these characteristics that make New Zealand "a historian's paradise: a laboratory whose isolation, size, and recency is an advantage, in which the grand themes of world history are often played out more rapidly, more separately, and therefore more discernably, than elsewhere." The first of two planned volumes, Making Peoples begins with the Polynesian settlement and its development into the Maori tribes in the eleventh century. It traces the great encounter between independent Maoridom and expanding Europe from 1642 to 1916, including the foundation of the Pakeha, the neo-Europeans of New Zealand, between the 1830s and the 1880s. It describes the forging of a neo-Polynesia and a neo-Britain and the traumatic interaction between them. The author carefully examines the myths and realities that drove the colonialization process and suggests a new "living" version of one of the most critical and controversial documents in New Zealand's history, the Treaty of Waitangi, frequently descibed as New Zealand's Magna Carta. The construction of peoples, Maori and Pakeha, is a recurring theme: the response of each to the great shift from extractive to sustainable economics; their relationship with their Hawaikis, or ancestors, with each other, and with myth. Essential reading for anyone interested in New Zealand history and in the history of new societies in general.

An authoritative demographic history of the New Zealand family from 1840&–2005, this reference is a collection of statistics that interprets the changing role of the family and its members. Using detailed research spanning 165 years, the authors chart the move from the large family of the 19th century to the baby boom, the increase in family diversity, and the modern trend towards unsustainably small families. This analysis of society helps trace changing attitudes and the structure of society by noting the reasons for and consequences of the demographic changes.