Reform: A Memoir Geoffrey Palmer Victoria University Press, $80.00, ISBN 9780864739056 Sir Geoffrey Palmer had a distinguished career as a law professor in both New Zealand and the United States and as deputy prime minister and then prime minister in…
Kicking the Tyres: The New Zealand General Election and Electoral Referendum of 2011 Jon Johansson and Stephen Levine (eds) Victoria University Press, $50.00, ISBN 9780864738349 Since 1987, New Zealand’s political scientists and journalists have recorded and analysed the country’s triennial…
The Politics of Equality: New Zealand’s Adventures in Democracy Leslie Lipson Victoria University Press, $50.00, ISBN 9780864736468 Leslie Lipson, an Englishman, became foundation Professor of Political Science at Victoria University College of the University of New Zealand in 1939.…
Nordy: Arnold Nordmeyer: A Political Biography Mary Logan Steele Roberts, $49.99, ISBN 9781877448331 Sir Arnold Nordmeyer (1901-89) was a Presbyterian minister, the son of a German seaman and a Northern Irish mother. A Labour MP from 1935-49 (Oamaru) and 1951-69…
Kiwi Keith: A Biography of Keith Holyoake Barry Gustafson Auckland University Press, $60.00, ISBN 9781869404000 I first met Keith Holyoake in 1943 in Pahiatua where my father was editor of the North Wairarapa Herald. In those days, even small country…
After Me Came the Berlin Wall: Lies, Spies and Journalism Mervyn Cull David Ling, $29.99, ISBN 9781877378096 Final Approaches: A Memoir Gerald Hensley Auckland University Press, $50.00, ISBN 1869403789 Memoirs are not autobiographies intended to be comprehensive accounts of the…
My Life David Lange Viking, $49.95, ISBN 067004556X David Lange was no Will Shakespeare, and his memoir My Life is no Hamlet, Othello or Macbeth. Lange’s prose is distinguished by clever one-liners, not lengthy, self-revealing soliloquies. My Life does, however,…
Political Animals: Confessions of a Parliamentary Zoologist Jane Clifton Penguin, $29.95, ISBN 0143019643 Two Titans: Muldoon, Lange and Leadership Jon Johansson Dunmore Press, $34.95, ISBN 1877399019 I have always loved Jane Clifton. I mean her well-informed, insightful and quirky newspaper…
Adventures in Democracy. A History of the Vote in New Zealand Neill Atkinson University of Otago Press in association with the Electoral Commission, $39.95, ISBN 1877276588 Organised society depends on the existence of governments. What those governments should do and…
From Muldoon to Lange: New Zealand Elections in the 1980s Stephen Levine and Alan McRobie MC Enterprises, $39.95, ISBN 0959771530 For almost thirty years from 1960, Professor Robert Chapman systematically studied New Zealand’s election campaigns and their outcomes. Since 1990,…
