New Zealand > NZ History and Society

In the late 1980s, a national outcry followed the publication of Sandra Coney and Phillida Bunkle's 'Unfortunate Experiment' article in Metro magazine about the treatment of carcinoma in situ at National Women's Hospital. The article prompted a commission of inquiry led by Judge Silvia Cartwright (now Dame Silvia Cartwright), which indicted the practices of doctors at the hospital and led to lawsuits, censure, a national screening programme and a revolution in doctor-patient relations in New Zealand. In this carefully researched bo... read more

Taking the first decade of the twentieth century as its starting point, At Home joins the story of the New Zealand house just at the point when its inhabitants begin to ask whether a distinctive, uniquely New Zealand house might be possible. It then charts the way in which imported movements, fashions and styles in twentieth-century architecture and design were adopted, or adapted, by New Zealanders to create a house environment whether international in its style or an attempt at something more distinctly local. At Home goes behind... read more

It is commonly estimated that one in six couples are unable to conceive, one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, and 600 babies are stillborn or die soon after birth each year. The experience can be the most traumatic thing that couples ever go through. It is also very lonely and isolating. Many are desperate to read other people's local and recent stories in order to gain comfort, however there are very few New Zealand stories available in published form. Baby Gone contains 45 true stories, written from the heart by those aff... read more

If a nation could be said to have a dominant passion, New Zealand's would be its landscapes. Images of spectacular natural features pervade the media - between the pages of glossy coffee-table books, in tourism promotions and on screen as the setting for blockbuster movies - but are these scenes that define its people? For Beyond the Scene the editors asked eleven writers to choose a landscape that was important to them and to write it from the perspective of their life experience and knowledge. From farmer to art historian and fil... read more

It's another Saturday night in 1950s Auckland. Downtown, nightclubs are banning the jive because the exuberant couples disturb the cautious fox-trotters. Over in Freeman's Bay, the Maori Community centre is the 'jazziest, jumpingest place in the city' where sweaty men in zoot suits feed on Maori bread and huge tubs of potatoes. In Blue Smoke, Chris Bourke recovers the lost dawn of New Zealand popular music in the 20th Century. Bourke brings to life the musical worlds of New Zealanders at home (buying sheet music from Beggs, listeni... read more

Say Castlepoint to any New Zealander of a certain age, and they'll know where you mean. It's real Country Calendar country up here - what farmers call summer dry, and typical East Coast Wairarapa. Windswept cliff-top paddocks and rugged hills grow the best carpet wool in the world, and tough men and women have have lived on and worked the land for generations. The catch with Castlepoint is that all those generations haven't necessarily grown up there - the current owners are seventh-generation farmers from New York State, though w... read more

Raewyn Peart explores the social, political and economic factors that have fuelled the development of the coastline. She looks at the tension between private and public interests, Maori and Pakeha, environmental preservation and development, and the responsibilities of central and local government.

The Christchurch earthquake of 22 February 2011 was one of the worst natural disasters in New Zealand's history. The quake devastated New Zealand's second biggest city and caused significant damage to infrastructure both within Christchurch itself and its immediate surrounds. After declining several quake books - none of which felt right - Hachette NZ was approached by the Canterbury District Police to produce a high-quality book of colour photography taken by Police forensic photographers, documenting the response to the earthquak... read more

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What if Maori had never discovered New Zealand? What if the moa had survived into modern times? What if Sir Francis Drake had reached New Zealand? What if Homo erectus, so-called Java Man, had survived in remote Southland? What if the wording of the Treaty of Waitangi had been very different? What if New Zealand had joined Australia in the early twentieth century? What if there'd been full Prohibition imposed in 1919? What if an Auckland volcano had erupted? What if the Napier earthquake had never happened? What if the Japanese had... read more

Its call sign was Fernleaf Cairo, and between 1939 and 1946, around 76,000 Kiwis of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force passed through Maadi Camp. Around 17 kilometres south of Cairo, the camp appeared almost overnight, as this country's permanent overseas base during World War Two. By 1945 the camp had tar-sealed roads, two cinemas, an open-air amphitheatre, canteens, bars, chapels, sports fields, a meat-pie and ice-cream factory, and - thanks to General Bernard Freyberg - swimming baths. Egypt was a source of boundless ama... read more

First to Care is the most comprehensive history written of the Order of St John in New Zealand. Told in a readable style with more than 250 photos and illustrations, First to Care unearths new information from the founding of the St John Ambulance Association in 1885 through to today’s organization, tracing traces the contributions of thousands of volunteers and staff over this long history of service. Graeme Hunt is one of our leading business historians. Based in Auckland, he is a wr... read more

The Treaty of Waitangi is the most important document in New Zealand's history. Current Treaty issues and Maori/Pakeha relationships can only be understood within the wider story of New Zealand. As we understand and honour our history, we can acknowledge the need for restoration, healing and right relationships. The public response to previous editions of this bestselling book by Robert Consedine and his daughter Joanna Consedine has been strong and overwhelmingly positive. This 2012 edition updates and expands on the critical iss... read more

Demonised by the Church throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, homosexuals became the scapegoats of society, constantly facing exile or a brutal death. In "Heroes to Exiles", the human cost of this long exile is told through the lives of the most eminent homosexual men and women in history. Some were artists like the wild living Benvenuto Cellini or the repressed Edward Lear. Others were poets such as Thomas Gray, W. H. Auden or novelists such as Henry James and A. J. Symonds. Their places of refuge changed through the cen... read more

We've been sold the idea that New Zealand has the best fisheries management in the world. This book sorts through the myths from the realities and finds that such an accolade belongs to only part of our fishery. And then who cares, if the global fishery scene is so dire that it poses a threat to the ocean's biodiversity and hence the ability of that ecosystem then having a part of New Zealand's fishery managed according to best practice, seems a little irrelevant. Like climate change the state of the global fishery is a global issu... read more

Matatoa Fathers And Sons' the third in a series of books on the history of Porangahau is to be released next month. Porangahau in Hawke's Bay is a significant coastal district, long settled by Ngati Kere iwi and later by high profile early colonisers. As such generations of families who call it 'home' ripple around New Zealand. Like its highly successful predecessors 'Hakui Mothers Of Porangahau' and 'Tuahine Sisters Of Porangahau,' the book is a compilation of family- written stories initiated by local women Marina Sciascia and Hi... read more

As this country developed from 1840 on, transport was the key to opening up areas for farming, forestry and manufacturing. The trains, ships, cars, planes, motorbikes and trucks that we used on to get places and make us more efficient were so relied upon that they have become part of our DNA. In this lively, well researched and affectionate survey of 100 'vehicles' of all descriptions, historian Matthew Wright takes us on a trip down memory lane, reacquainting us with the way we used to get around. The book features both New Zea... read more

New Zealand was the last country in the world to be discovered and settled by humankind. It was also the first to introduce full democracy. Between those events, and in the century that followed the franchise, the movements and conflicts of human history have been played out more intensively and more rapidly in New Zealand than anywhere else on Earth. The Penguin History of New Zealand tells that story in all its colour and drama. The narrative that emerges is an inclusive one about men and women, Maori and Pakeha. It shows that Br... read more

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