We really enjoyed this history of NZ and got a better understanding of the more recent changes and milestones of this beautiful country and of the relationship between Maori tribes and pakeha which is more nuanced and experienced more troubling periods than I was aware. ( )

New Zealand,Maori,Polynesians,World History,Environment,Natural History ( )

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 in advance of a visit to Aotearoa. ( )

This is a good narrative history of New Zealand. Its well written and manages to cover the material in a pretty balanced way. I enjoyed the way King explained the geological background and timescales. He also manages not to stay too aloof and general - I enjoyed the material on Thomas Russell for example and his cavalier capitalism at a time when the nation was beginning to really be built.
I'm sure there are parts that will annoy people of most political persuasions. Any material that deals with the relationship between the government and Maori in the nineteenth century is bound to annoy right wingers, and likewise the politically correct academia and Maori activists of the present might have seen red over his assessment of how in the span of time and our relationship with this place all New Zealand have become tangata whenua.
King avoids the awful tendency of many historians to patronise or judge the past (the 'we're so enlightened now' attitude). He is remarkably balanced - not too much of a cheerleader for the Savage government like some histories which seem to think Labour ended the Depression, for example.
Overall a good read for anyone with some interest in New Zealand's history and wanting a good overarching framework for understanding where we have come from. ( )

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 to die not long after revising this; he had many other great books in him. ( )