This is quite a refreshing analysis of history in an era otherwise stagnated by post-structuralist infestation in all fields of academia.

I came across this book in 2013 while researching for a school project on the Maori Land Wars. Belich's reputation as an impartial historian preceded him in my preliminary resources list and I picked up a dog-eared copy from my school library. Irrespective of the much cracked spine (it only added to the vintage sentiment of the book), I was instantly drawn into a world never seen before.

Incorporating contemporary sources from both the British military, the white settler and Maori perspectives Belich provides a surgical judgement on the New Zealand Wars also misnomered as the Maori Land Wars. He provides a much more realistic picture of the entire calamity as opposed to historians who primarily rely on the works of contemporary chroniclers who were far removed in London at the time and failed to distinguish between settler braggadocio and reality.

Overall, this is an engrossing read but-as with much of history-only for the interested ones and not readers looking for a lark in the park sort of memoir. ( )

In general Pākehā seem to have a ‘collective amnesia’ about the New Zealand Wars. This was challenged by Rhodes Scholar Belich in his ‘revisionist’ history, originating as a thesis but published in 1986 as The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict. It ‘helped reframe the wars - sometimes known as ‘the Māori Wars’ (with its ‘native-quelling’ connotations) - as ‘the New Zealand Wars’. The book sold an impressive 20,000 copies’ (Botes, 2009, para. 4) and impacted on the reshaping of national identity. Contrary to popular opinion at the time Belich pointed out ‘just how often the Māori were successful in battle and how near they came to winning the war’ (Wattie, 1998, p. 568). Jones (1989) explains that ‘Literature is an institution within a society, and as such it both reflects and projects an image of that society’s cultural identity’ (p. 187).

Coincidently, it is the white marble frieze on Rāwiri Puhirake’s memorial at Mission Cemetery, Tauranga, that features on the cover of Belich’s book. Therefore, whether people know it or not, they are familiar with this enduring image from the Battle of Gate Pā. Wood (2010) describes the book as a ‘revisionist history because it embodies a changed outlook free of any earlier imperial mindset or trappings’ (p. 22). As Belich (1998) himself states ‘the one thing contemporary explanations of the British defeat had in common was the lack of emphasis on the role of Māori skill and forethought’ (p. 186). Literature is one vehicle people use to explore their identity as a nation. ( )