Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting read on the Maori history of New Zealand, 15 Jun 2005
It seems I'm writing this review a long time before the book is published. Well, don't worry, I do have the book... I bought it on arrival in New Zealand to read during my travels there.Various reviews I have read of this book describe it as the ultimate review of New Zealand's history, and that the author Michael King who was one of the leading New Zealand historians before sadly dying in 2004, was the leading authority having written many books on his country's history. And sure enough the book doesn't disappoint. It catalogues the history of New Zealand from initial settlement (well, at least the various theories of the initial settlements) right through to the current government. My main reason for getting this book was to learn more about the Maori interaction with British settlers and that was covered superbly. I found this to be a very readable history book, not too dry, yet not too analytical either. Highly recommended.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A helpful survey of NZ history for the uninitiated, 6 Mar 2007
Having spent a month in New Zealand earlier this year I read Michael King's book when I got back to the daily grind. The blurbs on the back of the Kiwi edition seem to indicate that it is the seminal one-volume history of New Zealand. Not having read any other history of NZ I can't say how seminal it is, but it does give a comprehensive, clear and comprehensible description of New Zealand's development as a state and as a nation (or nations?).
King's writing is straightforward and pleasant, foregoing the staid formalism of more academic works; although occasional offhandedness seems a little too breezy. That shouldn't take away from the breadth and depth of the work, however. King's angle seems to be that the central problem for, and function of, the state, particularly as the years roll on, is to reconcile the differing views, mores, cultures, norms and, most importantly, concepts of property, of Maori and white New Zealander (Pakeha). Whether or not this is too revisionist a view I don't know.
Other subjects are well-covered too, particularly the peculiarly strong devotion to Empire, the role of war in forging a national, or at least Pakeha, consciousness, and the repeatedly disastrous consequences for the natural environment of human colonisation, memorably described as "future eating".
There seemed to be a couple of lacunae, although these may well stem from the fact that the book is intended for a New Zealand readership which has at least the most basic understanding of New Zealand's history - i.e. I may well be barking up the wrong tree. For instance, as I understand it, the Muldoon era was marked by divisiveness caused in part by Muldoon's power of personality. There's no real sense of this in the book. Second, King mentions the role of rugby in developing a distinctively Kiwi form of "mateship". But I would have expected that rugby deserved a few more lines - did the 1987 World Cup have any lasting bearing on New Zealand? I've also heard that the 1995 defeat precipitated the fall of the Shipley government in the next general election. Then again, as a one-volume history, the editing needs to be very tight. Third, as the previous review suggests, I Googled Littlewood Treaty and it does seem like it might be worth mentioning, even if only to verify or debunk the arguments surrounding it - King addresses the story of the Chatham Island Moriori people in just this manner. Finally, and this probably wouldn't be necessary in the New Zealand edition, a glossary of Maori terms would have been very helpful, as the sheer range of terms relating to kinship, tradition, honour, respect, land, authority and rank can become a little confusing.
Overall, though, King's work is very enjoyable and gives the reader a sense of the deep affection he holds for his native land. It does seem that his tragic death in 2004 robbed New Zealand of a good storyteller and a great historian. If you're not a Kiwi you'll have to take one or two things on trust but at least you'll have something to argue about the next time you bump into one in a bar.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Political to the end, 30 Nov 2006
I read this book a few years ago. King committed a serious diversion. He completely omits any mention of the Littlewood treaty document. Not simply a denial or downplay of its signifigance but total avoidence of the subject. This is frankly criminal for any writer of New Zealand history. Just websearch for this and you will soon learn what I mean.
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