Blog Archives

“New Zealand’s leading public historian”, Tom Brooking

Making History: A New Zealand Story Jock Phillips Auckland University Press, $45.00, ISBN 9781869408992 Jock Phillips has written an engaging memoir of his challenge to his father’s Anglophile and Eurocentric view of history, and transition from an academic to a…
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Posted in History, Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

Gloomy agreement, Tom Brooking

The New Zealand Project Max Harris Bridget Williams Books, $40.00, ISBN 9780947492588 New Zealand: Paradise Squandered? Reflections on What We’ve Lost and Where We’re Heading John Hawkes John Hawkes, $40.00, ISBN 9780473375553 Two New Zealanders at either end of their…
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Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review, Sociology

Exploring the biographers, Tom Brooking

Frank Worsley: Shackleton’s Fearless Captain John Thomson Craig Potton, $50.00 ISBN 9781927213124 Dumont d’Urville: Explorer and Polymath Edward Duyker Otago University Press, $70.00 ISBN 9781877578700   Here we have two very different approaches to writing about the history of European…
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Posted in Biography, History, Non-fiction, Review

Outstanding achievement or pitiful war? Janet Hunt

Making a New Land: Environmental Histories of New Zealand Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking (eds) Otago University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9781877578526 Making a New Land: Environmental Histories of New Zealand is a revised, expanded and renamed edition of Environmental Histories…
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Posted in History, Natural History, Review, Sociology

Larger than life, Simon Upton

Richard Seddon: King of God’s Own – The Life and Times of New Zealand’s Longest-serving Prime Minister Tom Brooking Penguin, $65.00 ISBN 9780143569671 I grew up in a very complacent country which didn’t really take its history seriously. New Zealand…
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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

Scots collective and singular, Kirstine Moffat

Unpacking the Kists: The Scots in New Zealand Brad Patterson, Tom Brooking and Jim McAloon Otago University Press, $70.00, ISBN 9780773541900 I have always enjoyed the inventiveness of collective nouns, favourites being an exaltation of larks and a worship of…
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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology

Minding the gap, Tom Brooking

People, People, People: A Brief History of New Zealand Stevan Eldred-Grigg David Bateman, $24.95, ISBN 9781869538132 In 1980 Stevan Eldred-Grigg wrote a provocative study of the great estate owners of the South Island which proved beyond any semblance of doubt…
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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Forgotten people, Tom Brooking

In/visible Sight: The Mixed-Descent Families of Southern New Zealand Angela Wanhalla Bridget Williams Books, $39.99, ISBN 9781877242434 Golden Prospects: Chinese on the West Coast of New Zealand Julia Bradshaw West Coast Historical and Mechanical Institute $54.95, ISBN 9780473155469 Doing Well…
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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Innocence, disruption, death, Tom Brooking

Aphrodite’s Island: The European Discovery of Tahiti Anne Salmond Viking, $65.00, ISBN 9780670073962 The publication of a new book by Anne Salmond is always an occasion worth celebrating and savouring. Aphrodite’s Island, about the European discovery of, and encounter with,…
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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Rough justice, Tom Brooking

The Newest Country in the World: A History of New Zealand in the Decade of the Treaty Paul Moon Penguin Books, $39.95, ISBN 978014300670 Paul Moon is one of the most prolific historians currently holding an academic position (Moon is…
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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review
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