Blog Archives
For King And Other Countries: The New Zealanders Who Fought In Other Services In The First World War Glyn Harper Massey University Press, $60.00, ISBN 9780995102996 New Zealand, like Australia, Canada, India, Newfoundland and South Africa, contributed enormous numbers of…
Dead Letters: Censorship And Subversion In New Zealand 1914–1920 Jared Davidson Otago University Press, $35.00, ISBN 9781988531526 Dead Letters contains intriguing detail about a random cast of now-forgotten people who were considered likely subversives in New Zealand during WWI. For…
Tutu Te Puehu: New Perspectives on the New Zealand Wars John Crawford and Ian McGibbon (eds) Steele Roberts, $50.00, ISBN 9780947493721 In February 2011, over 150 years after the start of the First Taranaki War, the first ever conference dedicated…
Le Quesnoy 1918: New Zealand’s Last Battle Christopher Pugsley Oratia, $45.00, ISBN 9780947506490 My father served on the Western Front, having signed up at the age of 17 or thereabouts. He came from a lonely farm in the Akatarawa Valley,…
Gallipoli to the Somme: Recollections of a New Zealand Infantryman Alexander Aitken (Alex Calder ed) Auckland University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9781869408817 Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac David Hastings Auckland University Press, $35.00, ISBN 9781869408824 As we come towards the end…
Make Her Praises Heard Afar: New Zealand Women Overseas in World War One Jane Tolerton Booklovers Press, $60.00, ISBN 9780473399658 As many scholars have observed, it is very difficult to write a history of women and war. Not only is…
Hit and Run: The New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan and the Meaning of Honour Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson Potton and Burton, $35.00, ISBN 9780947503390 “What is it that we don’t understand? We’re going to lose this fucking war if…
New Zealand’s Western Front Campaign Ian McGibbon Bateman, $80.00, ISBN 9781869539269 Efforts to explain and/or convey WWI’s Western Front have endured for a century. Libraries could be stocked with military histories investigating the operation of armies, the performance of commanders…
Te Whiti o Rongomai and the Resistance of Parihaka Danny Keenan Huia, $45.00, ISBN 9781775501954 This account of the non-violent resistance movement founded by the prophets Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi at the Taranaki settlement of Parihaka begins…
Behind the Twisted Wire: New Zealand Artists in World War I Jennifer Haworth Wily Publications, $50.00, ISBN 9781927167212 Recently, I had the privilege of watching the magnificently restored WWI propaganda film, Battle of the Somme (1916). Shot by official cinematographers…