A Life of J C Beaglehole: New Zealand Scholar Tim Beaglehole Victoria University Press, $69.95, ISBN 0864735227 John Cawte Beaglehole remains New Zealand’s best-known and most highly regarded historian internationally. None of the numerous Cook biographies published since his magisterial…
The Legacy of Guilt: A Life of Thomas Kendall Judith Binney Bridget Williams Books, $49.95, ISBN 1877242330 There are few New Zealand history books that can be described as seminal, that is, books so deep in their research and broad…
Environmental Histories of New Zealand ed Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking Oxford University Press, $49.95, ISBN 019558421X Environmentally and in other ways, New Zealand is a last frontier – the last temperate-climate land on earth to be discovered and colonised…
Country of Writing: Travel Writing and New Zealand, 1809-1900 Lydia Wevers Victoria University Press, $39.95, ISBN 186940271S New Zealand’s extreme isolation has always made it attractive to travellers. As the most remote destination on the globe it has always held…
Hobson Governor of New Zealand 1840–42 Paul Moon David Ling, $49.95, ISBN 0 90899 054 5 To Be A Hero: A Biography of Sir George Grey, 1812–1898 Edmund Bohan HarperCollins, $49.95, ISBN 1 86950 279 5 It is hard to imagine…
The Mother of AlI Departments. The History of the Department of Internal Affairs Michael Bassett Auckland University Press, $39.95 ISBN 1 869401751 Safeguarding the Public Health. A History of the New Zealand Department of Health Derek Dow Victoria University Press…
An Eye for Country: The Life and Work of Leslie Adkin Anthony Dreaver Victoria University Press with the assistance of Te Papa $49.95 ISBN 0 86473 31 9 4 Leslie Adkin – struggling farmer, amateur geologist, dilettante ethnographer and evocative…
Land and Water: Water and Soil Conservation and Central Government in New Zealand 1941-1988 Michael Roche Historical Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, $24.95, ISBN 0 477 05691 1 Visiting American academics are intrigued by the over-confident manner with which New…
But where are the people? Tom Brooking
Have you ever wondered why there are so many picture books of beautiful New Zealand cluttering the shelves of our bookshops? Obviously publishers think there is a market for them both amongst tourists and locals — but probably the proliferation of…
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