Michael King (1) (1945–2004)

Ah, I had lived in NZ for many years before reading this book.

If only I had known how crucial it would be to understanding what has happened and what is happening. It should be mandatory reading for any new immigrant. What shocked me more was realising that most Kiwis were ignorant of the history of their own country.

Imagine an America where you had a Black Lives Matter movement and a white population that knew nothing of slavery. That is what NZ was like in the past. Thankfully, a much show more fuller and inclusive NZ history is being taught in schools today.

I think NZ has lead the world when it comes to acknowledging past injustices. Many years ago the Govt began making reparations to Maori for land confiscations and various other wrongdoings. IT was done with huge backlash from Pakeha (white-ish people) simply because Pakeha had zero knowledge of those past wrongdoings.

Maori culture and history is very much a verbal based event with knowledge pased down through the generations by word of mouth. This meant that practically all Maori knew what had happened to their people since the Pakeha came but Pakeha didn't, so you can imagine how that played out over the years.

I am not digressing because this is the core of NZ history that is relevant today. This also not a dry history book with a list of dates and events, context is woven throughout.

I will go so far to say that any Kiwi who hasn't read this book is just another extension of the colonialism that lead to the near genocide of the people of this land. show less

With such a small area and short timespan to cover, it felt possible to hold the entire story in my head at one time. This meant that I felt viscerally the surprise of the Moriori after centuries without contact and the tragedy of their fate. It also engendered a huge admiration of the adaptability of the Moriori to their environment and of their commitment to the pacifist principle of Nunuku's Law in the face of the severest possible test.

The photos and letters were well-chosen to show the show more personalities of the Moriori, Maori, and Europeans alike, and they never lapsed into illustration for illustration's sake.

Also, the anecdote about the hapless French sailors who tried to lock the Maori travelling with them below the deck was genuinely hilarious. show less

Faintly stunned when I got to the end of this. My first thought was that everyone in NZ should read this approachable, comprehensive bicultural account of our country's history. Unlike Belich's two volumes, it's written for the general reader, not the historian. It's larded with plenty of quotation and vignette to avoid dryness, and I found myself underlining or annotating almost every page. An overwhelming desire to read it again immediately, or at least every year. What a tragedy for King show more to die not long after revising this; he had many other great books in him. show less

This book gives a nice and brief overview of the history of New Zealand. Especially the early chapters on New Zealand's pre-history and Maori settlement are quite enlightening. However, most of the topics are treated somewhat superficially and if you are interested in a more in-depth history of New Zealand's places and people, you will have to find further material. This book is merely an excellent introduction for someone who has never given thought to Kiwi history. It is certainly helpful show more in advance of a visit to Aotearoa. show less