For Europeans during the nineteenth century, the Urewera was a remote wilderness; for those who lived there, it was a sheltering heartland. This history documents the first hundred years of the ‘Rohe Pōtae’ (the ‘encircled lands’ of the Urewera) following European contact.After large areas of land were lost, the Urewera became for a brief period an autonomous district, governed by its own leaders. But in 192122, the Urewera District Native Reserve was abolished in law. Its very exi...

The archetypal story of Thomas Kendall, a self-torturing, struggling missionary in nineteenth century New Zealand, is also a remarkable history of cross-cultural experience.Posted to New Zealand in 1814, Kendall was immensely devout but entirely unprepared for dealing with Māori. He nonetheless helped produce the first Māori Grammar, but was hindered by rumours of an affair with a Māori chief’s daughter. Dismissed from his duties in 1823, he continued studying Māori culture until h...

A long-awaited reprint of a book that has remained in steady demand since publication in 1995.Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki was one of the nineteenth century’s most significant leaders. In both war and peace, he sought to redeem his people and the land. Yet his reputation as a feared opponent of colonial forces obscured his achievements for generations. The causes of Te Kooti’s struggles are larger than personal injustice: he fought a war against land confiscation and illegal land ...

This book is a visual and narrative history of two communities, Māori and Pākehā, during a hundred years of settlement in New Zealand.It reveals how the two cultures saw their history through very different eyes: for Pākehā, it was a story of establishing an ‘English island’ in the Pacific; for Māori, a tale of loss and exclusion. But by setting out these conflicting understandings of the past, the book also seeks to bridge cultural differences through the sharing of knowledge....

The writing of history will only flourish if there is a vehicle for its publication: such was Sir Keith Sinclair’s vision when he founded The New Zealand Journal of History in 1967. Since then the journal has been the conduit for a flow of remarkable history writing. The Shaping of History brings together a selection of essays from its first 30 years by some of the nation’s best-known historians, including Judith Binney, Tipene O’Regan, Claudia Orange, Barbara Brookes, Alan Ward, Jock Phil...

Tangata Whenua: A History presents a rich narrative of the Māori past from ancient origins in South China to the twenty-first century, in a handy paperback format. The authoritative text is drawn directly from the award-winning Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History; the full text of the big hardback is available in a reader-friendly edition, ideal for students and for bedtime reading, and a perfect gift for those whose budgets do not stretch to the illustrated edition. Maps and diagrams c...

Stories Without End is a testament to nearly 40 years of groundbreaking historical research by one of New Zealand’s leading scholars.Sitting alongside her major works including the 2010 Book of the Year, Encircled Lands these essays explore sidepaths and previously unexamined histories. They notably delve into the lives of powerful early Māori figures, including the prophets Rua Kenana and Te Kooti, their wives and their descendants, and the leaders of the Urewera.Binney br...

Foreword by Damon Salesa.'Story telling is an art deep within human nature.' A timely collection of writings on history, from one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most distinguished scholars. These essays bring forth important questions for New Zealand history about autonomy, restoration and power that continue to reverberate today. They also serve as a pathway into the rigorous and imaginative scholarship that characterised Judith Binney's acclaimed historical writing.

This bestselling book, the triumphant fruit of careful research, wide reading and judicious assessment, is the unchallenged contemporary reference on the history of New Zealand. New Zealand was the last country in the world to be discovered and settled by humankind. It was also the first to introduce full democracy. Between those events, and in the century that followed, the movements and conflicts of human history have been played out more intensively and more rapidly in ...

The Award-Winning History of Colonial Melbourne'James Boyce tells the true history of this country with rare clarity and an eye for the essential that never fails.' —David MarrWith the founding of Melbourne in 1835, a flood of settlers began spreading out across the Australian continent. In three years more land – and more people – was conquered than in the preceding fifty.In 1835 James Boyce brings this pivotal moment to life. He traces ...

Winner of the 2014 Victorian Premier's Award for non-fiction!Australia is dotted with memorials to soldiers who fought in wars overseas. Why are there no official memorials or commemorations of the wars that were fought on Australian soil between Aborigines and white colonists? Why is it more controversial to talk about the frontier war now than it was one hundred years ago? Forgotten War continues the story told in Henry Reynolds' seminal book The Oth...

New Zealand to many is 'Middle Earth', home of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it was also the last major land mass on the planet to be settled by humans.The country was catapulted kicking and screaming from the stone age to the space age within 200 years of Captain Cook setting foot there...Who really got to New Zealand first? Which version of the Treaty of Waitangi is the most accurate? What impact did a massive asteroid strike in the 15th century have on human settlem...