history

Te Tiriti Then and Now

February 1, 2021 Leave a Comment

Gerry Te Kapa Coates

Waitangi: A Living Treaty by Matthew Wright (Bateman Books, 2019), 296pp, $39.99

Professor Paul Moon says of the Treaty of Waitangi in his Foreword to this book: ‘The intricate web of colonial policy that was spun in years leading to its signing requires disentangling.’ He notes the Treaty’s evolution and its ‘layers of interpretations and meanings’. Te Tiriti o Waitangi can be seen as a shared idea—or plurality of ideas—one that began in 1840 with 176 words in te reo Māori, 226 words in English; a modest document compared with other founding documents such as the US Declaration of Independence (1337 words) or England’s Magna Carta (4478 words). Today Te Tiriti has morphed into a resolution process dealing with historical grievances as well as more recent issues such as the place of concepts like kaitiakitanga rights in the Exclusive Economic Zone. Te Tiriti has always been attributed with interpretations that stretch beyond the mere meanings of the words. [Read more…]

Beyond Beauty: Portraits of New Zealand history

December 1, 2020 Leave a Comment

Cushla McKinney

No Man’s Land by A.J. Fitzwater (Paper Road Press, 2020), 154 pp, $22; Jerningham by Cristina Sanders (The Cuba Press, 2020), 388 pp, $37

The best historical fiction gives readers a space to explore the origins of issues that continue to affect them. It also presents writers with unique challenges of voice, emotional plausibility, and historical and contemporary validity. Two new novels, No Man’s Land by Vogel Award-winner A.J. Fitzwater and Cristina Sanders’ first adult novel, Jerningham, tackle these challenges in different but equally engaging ways.

In the early 1940s, when thousands of New Zealand men served in the armed forces overseas, women stepped into traditional male roles in farming, factories and other essential industries. This provides the backdrop for Fitzwater’s exploration of sex, gender and identity in No Man’s Land. [Read more…]

A Common Silence

November 1, 2020 Leave a Comment

Shana Chandra

Kalimpong Kids by Jane McCabe (Otago University Press, 2020), 139pp, $35

I have been struck by the silence that was common to our family histories, and by the role that photographs played in keeping curiosity alive.—Jane McCabe

As a historical record and document, Kalimpong Kids is a visual testament to the past, a collection of familial photographs that have survived as relics. Photographs that have provided clues to hushed stories handed down, muted by shame. Photographs of a society that kept hidden what it couldn’t palate. Photographs that say tangible things that lips could not. [Read more…]

The Slow Wheels of Justice

October 1, 2020 Leave a Comment

Gerry Te Kapa Coates

Justice & Race: Campaigns against racism and abuse in Aotearoa New Zealand by Oliver Sutherland (Steele Roberts, 2020), 288pp., $34.99

Professor Emeritus David Williams, in his foreword to this important book, says it ‘is not an easy read’. The book deals with issues around systemic racism in the justice and policing jurisdictions from 1969 to 1986. Heavy topics, yes, but the book, thanks to Oliver Sutherland’s masterful handling of the material, reads like a thriller, peppered with well-known names and events highlighted by newspaper clippings and photographs. [Read more…]