A concise history of New Zealand / Philippa Mein Smith.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

New Zealand was the last major landmass, other than Antarctica, to be settled by humans. The story of this rugged and dynamic land is beautifully narrated, from its origins in Gondwana some 80 million years ago to the twenty-first century. Philippa Mein Smith highlights the effects of the country's smallness and isolation, from its late settlement by Polynesian voyagers and colonisation by Europeans - and the exchanges that made these people Maori and Pakeha - to the dramatic struggles over land and recent efforts to manage global forces. A Concise History of New Zealand places New Zealand in its global and regional context. It unravels key moments - the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the Anzac landing at Gallipoli, the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior - showing their role as nation-building myths and connecting them with the less dramatic forces, economic and social, that have shaped contemporary New Zealand.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Mein Smith's addition to the publisher's "Concise Histories" series is an exceptionally well-written, well-documented analysis of New Zealand's remarkable development from its earliest Maori beginnings through the discovery and settlement by Pakehas (Europeans) to the present. She pays appropriate attention to the circumstances surrounding Captain Hobson's 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and to the promises made and broken. There is a close examination of the "musket" (Maori) wars, as well as a welcome explanation of the Maori prophet movement sometimes called Pai Marire (goodness and peace), and also known as Hauhau (the spirit of God, likened to wind). Mein Smith (Univ. of Canterbury) analyzes the proceedings of the Native Land ("land-taking") Court in the 1860s-70s and the reasons for the overall decline of the Maori population during the 19th century. She explains the nature of colonial nationalism, the grant of dominion status in 1907, and the traumas of Gallipoli and Passchendaele during WW I. Her last chapters place New Zealand in Pacific and global context by relating the 1985 USS Buchanan and Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior incidents, which assured passage of New Zealand's definitive Nuclear-Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act. Helpful maps, illustrations, glossary, chronology, and bibliography make this an excellent undergraduate/graduate supplement. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. W. W. Reinhardt Randolph-Macon College