A Dark Chapter From New Zealand History

By James Hawthorne offers a compelling look into the history of New Zealand during a tumultuous period. Hawthorne's narrative sheds light on the New Zealand Wars, particularly the events involving Te Kooti and the Gisborne District. It's a valuable historical account that explores a significant chapter in New Zealand's past, providing insights into the region's history and the impact of historical conflicts.

From 1906 to 1925 Quail Island, in Lyttelton Harbour, was the site of New Zealand’s leprosy colony. The colony began by accident, as it were, after the discovery of a leprosy sufferer in Christchurch. As further patients arrived from across the country, it grew into a controversial and troubled institution – an embarrassment to the Health Department, an object of pity to a few, a source of fear to many. This remarkable narrative reveals a little-known aspect of New Zealand’s past, shedding light on the treatment of some of society’s most marginal, unfortunate and isolated people. Written in lucid, compelling prose, The Dark Island heralds the arrival of a significant historical voice.

First published in 1986, James Belich's groundbreaking book and the television series based upon it transformed New Zealanders' understanding of New Zealand's great "civil war": struggles between Maori and Pakeha in the 19th century. Revealing the enormous tactical and military skill of Maori, and the inability of the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict to acknowledge those qualities, Belich's account of the New Zealand Wars offered a very different picture from the one previously given in historical works. This bestselling classic of New Zealand history and Belich's larger argument about the impact of historical interpretation resonates today.

Donald McLean. The hard-tempered Scot whose policies shaped New Zealand's colonial-age race relations, and gave rise to grievances that echo into the twenty-first century. The government official who used his position to get land for his personal ventures - and provoked war between Maori along the way. The man who, rumour insists, used his power as our Minister of Defence to order the shooting of his own illegitimate son - the right-hand man of religious leader Te Kooti. McLean's role as the powerhouse behind some of the most heated land controversies of settler-era New Zealand is well known. But the man behind those deeds has remained largely hidden. Man of Secrets, an absorbing new biography by Matthew Wright, goes behind the public persona, revealing the private Donald McLean. A man dogged by his upbringing, wrestling with his insecurities - a devout and fearful man who felt himself inadequate before God and who never recovered from the loss of his young wife.

Welcome to our story, this history. Wherever in the world the bones of your ancestors lie, wherever their ashes may have been dispersed, here you will find traces of them, and of yourself....It is, of course, a story of colonisation and resistance – and a history that has never stopped repeating. Arama Rata The New Zealand Wars of the mid-nineteenth century profoundly shaped the course and direction of our nation's history. This book takes us to the heart of these conflicts with a series of first-hand accounts from Māori and Pākehā who either fought in or witnessed the wars that ravaged New Zealand between 1845 and 1872. From Heni Te Kiri Karamu's narrative of her remarkable exploits as a wahine toa, through to accounts from the field by British soldiers and powerful reports by observers on both sides, we learn about the wars at a human level. The often fragmentary, sometimes hastily written accounts that make up Voices from the New Zealand Wars vividly evoke the extreme emotions – fear, horror, pity and courage – experienced during the most turbulent time in our country's history. Each account is expertly introduced and contextualised, so that the historical record speaks to us vividly through many voices.