Customer Reviews

Penguin History of New Zealand

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Upon visiting New Zealand for the first time two years ago, an enthusiastic Kiwi colleague recommended Michael King's recently published Penguin History of New Zealand as 'a true page-turner'.

Five hundred and seventy pages later, I am almost prepared to agree. It may well be that not even John Grisham could write a true page-turner about this beautiful and endearing country's history. Regardless, Michael King has done about as superb job with the material in hand as one can imagine.

The reigning paradigm that makes itself felt throughout the book is the interaction between Maori and Pakeha, a troubled but not persistently bellicose relationship that colors nearly every aspect of New Zealanders' life up until the present time. Some of course will suspect that this is overstatement by an outsider who cannot know how genuinely normal life on these two islands is most of the time. Perhaps they are right, though it must be conceded that any single volume that attempts a sweeping history of the place must necessarily pay attention to this indivisible division among its mosaic of people.

It is the achievement of that very panoramic coherence and the readable - page-turning might be a stretch - manner in which it is presented that represents the late author's victory. He was patently a man both enamored with and to some degree frustrated by his land and its inhabitants. Just as evidently, he must have loved to talk about that place. Only one who first spoke often and well about it could write so eloquently of his number eight wire country, where almost anything is possible with a little grit and ingenuity. Even a page-turning history - we might finally concede - of New Zealand.

I was fortunate to visit New Zealand this summer. Prior to the trip, I read what I could find on NZ...Captain Cook's travelogues, of course the Lord of the Rings movie books, even dabbled in a Maori-English dictionary. However, all had their shortcomings. I spoke about this with a friend in Lake Taupo (on the North Island), he recommended to me the Penguin History of New Zealand. I followed suit and became hooked!

Michael King, a former professor of New Zealand history at Georgetown University, has written an incredibly detailed and thought-provoking survey of New Zealand history. He challenged popular ideas of the first inhabitants of the islands and raised several interesting arguments (the idea of the Maori's ancestors being traced to Peru being one of my favorites. In all honesty, I still have not completed the book. If I can think of one drawback to the book, it is that Mr. King is no longer here to continue on his work, as he was killed in a car accident shortly before the release of the book.

Nonetheless, if one is looking for a provoking read on one of the world most dynamic democracies, this is a good one.

When I was younger my family and I lived in New Zealand. We moved back to the US while I was still in grade school and for the first time since then we went back this winter. Being older this time I had decide that I wanted to learn a little bit about NZ history. I was luck because New Zealand is such a literal society that they had more than enough suggestions for me. This book however was the book that came up most often when I asked book store. I was real apprehensive to get it though because it looked so long and I had really just been looking for something I could read while on vacation. I couldn't be happier with my decision in the end. For being so thick I was able to read this book in only a couple of weeks and I am not a fast reader. Not only was it a quality book that keep me reading it was also broken up into chapters and sections that made it easy to read. Not living in New Zealand or planning on going back as often as I would like, I only wanted information on certain aspects of NZ history. The way this book read I was able to get into the parts I wanted to and skim over some areas with out feeling like I was missing out on the flow of the book. It had everything I could have wanted to know and more in it. Good read.

I should explain that I am an Australian (now also a NZ Citizen)who has lived in NZ for 36 years. Like most Australians, I was almost totally ignorant of NZ before coming here, but have tried to read what has become available over the years in order to gain a better understanding of my adopted country. That reading included the short Penguin history of New Zealand by Sir Keith Sinclair. That history was written with an emphasis on the Pakeha ('European') perspective characteristic of the times. Michael King's book redresses the balance and greatly emphasises the Maori perspective, and Maori/Pakeha relations. I found this fascinating and instructive, and not irrelevant to gaining a better understanding some current social issues. The book is strikingly coherent, and is an easy read because it flows so well. The book is an example of excellent writing. I am left, however, with a strange feeling of unease. Although the book is a long one, there is a feeling that it often just skims the surface. The big picture, as the author saw it, appears to have obscured or even obliterated other material. For example, one is none, or only a little, wiser about how New Zealanders, both Maori and Pakeha, lived at home during World War II and the Great Depression. The author's admiration for NZ soldiers comes through strongly, but is not balanced by an adequate treatment of the appalling, unjust, and well-documented, abuse of conscientious objectors, particularly during World War I. He embraces the scientist Maurice Wilkins as a New Zealander who went abroad to pursue his career: in fact, Maurice Wilkins was born in New Zealand, but taken back to Britain by his parents as a small boy, and never returned. This may be the only inaccuracy in the book, but it does not inspire confidence in its complete accuracy. In short, this book is a good and compelling read, written from a particular point of view. It should not be read as the only account by people who want a balanced understanding of the short history of these islands. Tragically, the author is no longer alive to revise his work: one hopes that another historian will do so.

This book is essential to anybody interested in NZ history, and History in general. It is wonderfully written and summarises a detailed history of NZ very well. Highly recommended.

King combines a very thorough scholarship with an eminently clear and readible style. His book is an ideal introduction to New Zealand for the outside world, owing to its strong emphasis on specific unique qualities that set this country apart. He starts his history millions of years ago, when New Zealand first broke off from the giant continent Gondwana (consisting of South America, Africa, Australia and parts of southeast Asia). He credits this event for New Zealand's unique collection of pre-historic plants and animals. New Zealand happens to be the last colony settled by Europeans (mid nineteenth century), a distinction which also means its indigenous Maori were the last major human community to be totally unaffected by the outside world.

King devotes particular attention - unusual for historians of European origin - to the painful process of colonization. However he goes beyond an enumeration of instances of land expropriation and mass killings, by describing the amazing adaptive capacity of the Maori people and the profound influence they had on their colonizers. As New Zealand was the first country in the world to enact women's suffrage, he also devotes significant attention to this period - as well as to the post 1950s self-organizing among Maori to reassert their claim to their ancestral land and cultural heritage (which includes recognition of Maori as an official New Zealand language).

A page turner - in my experience quite rare for a 500 page book.

By Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall, author of THE MOST REVOLUTIONARY ACT: MEMOIR OF AN AMERICAN REFUGEE

An essential but not easy read for all Kiwis and anyone else interested in the land down under.

It is obvious why this book is heralded by all the trendy PC thinkers in NZ today as a work of inspired genius: the white man is to blame for all the ills suffered by the brown man in NZ today and deserves to feel guilty about it. I do not subscribe to this view. The author simply puts his own spin on NZ's history, and his 'opinions' are rarely capable of being supported by relevant research data. In only the first 20 to 30 pages the author makes invalid assumptions, presents spurious speculations and misrepresents uncontestable facts, as well as completely ignoring some aspects of recent researched observation. In spite of his (the author's) efforts to make my own (European) race feel guilty, I do not. I am proud to be white; after all, neither I nor my children are responsible for any past actions (on both sides) and find such blatant attempts to coerce the reader as dangerous as well as being extremely non-productive. This is not the way to encourage New Zealanders to look forward to the future.