Iain Sharp: Letter from Auckland: Son of Landfall At the time of writing, it’s in the midst of a closing-down sale, like much of Auckland, but for the last couple of years there has been a music shop on the…
Frontier New Zealand: The Search for Eldorado 1800-1920 Duncan Mackay, Harper Collins, $34.95 The besetting sin of historical writing is hindsightism. That is to say, the creation of the illusion that because we have arrived at today’s destination then at…
New Territory: the Transformation of New Zealand 1984-1992 Colin James, Bridget Williams Books, $29.95 The cognoscente will first turn to chapter 15’s footnote 25, one of the longest in the book, where the author claims that Bruce Jesson misrepresents his role…
A Pastoral Kingdom Divided: Cheviot 1889-94, W J Gardner, Bridget Williams Books, $45 Without a doubt, the much-publicised success of the land policies of the great Liberal party of the 1890s, of which the very essence was the subdivision and settlement of the…
Fighting for New Zealand: New Zealand in the 21st Century Mike Moore, MMSC Ltd, $19.95 Recent experience in New Zealand confirms that the first goal of all politicians in a democratic system is to win the next election, and here…
The Oxford History of New Zealand G W Rice (ed), (2nd Edition), Oxford University Press, $59.95 When, in 1973, Professor J G A Pocock delivered his J C Beaglehole Memorial Lecture on British History to the New Zealand Historical Association (subsequently…