J C Beaglehole: Public Intellectual, Critical Conscience Doug Munro Steele Roberts, $25.00, ISBN 9781877577802 In 1946, Victoria University College historian J C Beaglehole wrote of New Zealand’s nascent national identity and the historian’s contribution to the development of national life.…
A Great New Zealand Prime Minister? Reappraising William Ferguson Massey James Watson and Lachy Paterson (eds) Otago University Press, $39.99, ISBN 9781877578076 New Zealand political biography is in good shape, largely thanks to Barry Gustafson and Michael Bassett. Between…
Robert Louis Stevenson: His Best Pacific Writings ed Roger Robinson Streamline, $34.95, ISBN 0958210624 Everyone knows about Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), described by a contemporary as “a spirit intense and rare” and immortalised by Samoans as Tusitala (the teller of…
Awatere: A Soldier’s Story Arapeta Awatere (ed Hinemoa Ruataupare Awatere) Huia, $49.95, ISBN 1877283819 During the early 1970s, an elderly Maori man, who had been convicted of murder, sat in his cell in Mt Eden Prison and penned his memoirs.…
Eminent Victorians: great teachers and scholars from Victoria’s first 100 years ed Vincent O’Sullivan Stout Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, $24.95, ISBN 0 473 06487 1 As every schoolboy and schoolgirl doesn’t know, a book called Eminent Victorians appeared…