Australian & Pacific History

The Chief and the Empire uncovers the extraordinary true tale of Te Tai Tokerau rangatira Te Pahi - the first influential Māori leader to cross the Tasman - whose curiosity about the Pākehā world forged alliances, saved lives, and ultimately cost him his own. On a visit to Sydney in 1805, Te Pahi was feted as a celebrity, building close...

A brilliant memoir of adolescence in New Zealand and of the migration of European manuscripts to the far side of the world. Christopher de Hamel is one of the world's best-known scholars and writers on illuminated manuscripts. He was mostly brought up in the south of New Zealand, where his family moved when he was four. This book magically evokes...

Victorian Wellington street by street In 1891, a remarkable map of Wellington was made by surveyor Thomas Ward. It recorded the footprint of every building, from Thorndon in the north and across the teeming, inner-city slums of Te Aro to Berhampore in the south. Updated regularly over the next 10 years, it detailed hotels, theatres, oyster saloons, brothels, shops, stables,...

Be Brave

"Andrew Crowe has produced a masterful synthesis of the remarkable voyaging history of the Polynesians." Prof Patrick V. Kirch, Chancellor's Professor Emeritus and Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California at Berkeley. Pathway of the Birds casts light on a neglected epoch of world history, one that saw Polynesians expand their territory across the world's largest ocean....

A revised edition of the best-selling book containing two new chapters covering the last decade and a half. Struggle Without End by Dr. Ranginui Walker is a compelling history of Aotearoa, New Zealand, viewed from a distinctly Māori perspective. Dr. Walker meticulously traces the journey of the Māori people from their Polynesian origins, through the arrival of European settlers in...

The Samoan Islands are virtually unique in that tattooing has been continuously practised with indigenous techniques: the full male tattoo, the pe'a, has evolved in subtle ways in its design since the nineteenth century, but remains as elaborate, meaningful, and powerful as it ever was. This cultural history is the first publication to examine 3000 years of Samoan tatau. Through...

Updated Edition 2025 This new edition contains a completely up-to-date timeline. Winner of four major awards.Brilliantly written by award-winning journalist Rebecca Macfie. 'Devastating account of a needless tragedy' - Otago Daily Times'Lucid, exhaustive, enraging' - New Zealand Listener'Compelling account of what went wrong' - Weekend Herald'Highly readable, sometimes shocking' - The Press'Compulsory reading for directors, managers and business students' -...

The definitive and bestselling history of Aotearoa New Zealand by one of our leading historians, continuously in print for 20 years. This bestselling book by the late Michael King is the unchallenged contemporary reference on the history of New Zealand. First published in 2003 and hailed as a triumph of careful research, wide reading and judicious assessment, it has been...

After her father's death, Katrina Kittel opens his old Globite suitcase and finds tiny photos, postcards in beautiful handwriting from a mysterious Swiss woman, and memorabilia from his war. Katrina Kittel's father, Colin Booth, was captured during the disastrous July 1942 attempt to take Alamein's Ruin Ridge. He was among 80,000 Allied soldiers sent to camps in northern Italy as...

Dazzling, poetic and vivid storytelling from one of Australia's greatest writers, which tells the bloody, brutal and enthralling story of the epic journey of the First Fleet. Originally published as a multi-part serial in The Australian, By Sea & Stars tells the story of the epic voyage which led to the founding of our nation, as told from the point...

Sea People by Christina Thompson is a riveting historical exploration that delves into the mysterious origins and epic journeys of the Polynesians—one of the world's most enigmatic and adventurous seafaring peoples. The narrative unfolds over a thousand years ago, focussing on how these master navigators discovered and colonised the far-flung islands within a vast triangle from Hawaii to New Zealand...

A South Seas classic since 1966, this is the story of one New Zealander brave enough to do what we have all now and then dreamed of doing – live alone on a desert island. In his youth, Tom Neale was an ordinary seaman and for years a shopkeeper among the Cook Islands, but he was in his fifties when...

Built in Calcutta (Kolkata), India, in 1853, the Edwin Fox is the only remaining vessel of her kind and has made a unique and unmatched contribution to world maritime history. The ship's importance is acknowledged by Heritage New Zealand, which has designated it as Category 1—the highest level of protection. Built in Calcutta (Kolkata), India, in 1853, the ship is...

History of New Zealand and its Inhabitants offers an engaging and provocative narrative from the unique perspective of Dom Felice Vaggioli, an Italian Benedictine monk who was sent to Aotearoa New Zealand during the late 19th century. This English language translation captures Vaggioli's observations and reflections on the lifestyles, customs, and historical events he encountered while serving in Auckland, the...

Captain Cook And The Unsettled Afterlives Of Empire James Cook is one of the most contested figures in Aotearoa New Zealand’s past. Today, his name evokes not only exploration and scientific endeavour but also the violence of first encounters and the enduring legacies of colonisation. In this major new history, Tony Ballantyne examines how stories about Cook have changed over...

A new edition of the bestselling short history on New Zealand, updated to include the Helen Clark years, the rise of John Key, the Christchurch earthquakes and the 2011 Rugby World Cup!

In 1990 those living on Chatham Islands/ Rekohu/ Wharekauri faced crisis. Annexed to New Zealand by a London proclamation, the Islands had experienced 150 years of New Zealand control. Years of muddlement, some good intentions, financial waste exploitation and theft, and failure to deliver democratic rights and basic infrastructure. The after-effects of Rogernomics had produced a government decision to “walk...

Ko Te Kooti Te Turuki Rikirangi tētahi o ngā maunga teitei o te wā – he kōkōrangi i ngā rā pōuri, he tokotoko i te awa kōpaka. I tū ia hei toa i te whare o Tūmatauenga, engari ki te Hāhi Ringatū, he poropiti – he matakite nāna i hāpai ngā moemoeā, ngā tūmanako, me ngā wairua o te iwi...

The life and letters of one of the first European women to settle in New Zealand. In 1822, Marianne Williams, with her missionary husband Henry and their three small children, left England forever. Their new home, in New Zealand's Bay of Islands, was a remote one-house settlement—the Church Missionary Society mission station headquarters. This was nearly twenty years before the...

Shortlisted, 2024 NSW Premier's History Awards, Anzac Memorial Trustees Military History Prize On 9 August 1918, at Chipilly Spur overlooking the Somme River, an entire British Army Corps is held up by German machine gunners. The battle has raged for 30 hours and more than 2000 men have fallen. Then, two Australian sergeants, Jack Hayes and Harold Andrews, go absent...

Bible & Treaty: Missionaries Among the Maori is a complex and colourful adventure of faith, bravery, perseverance, and betrayal that seeks to recover lost connections in the story of modern New Zealand. It brings a fresh perspective to the missionary story, from the lead-up to Samuel Marsden's first sermon on New Zealand soil, and the intervening struggle for survival and...

Shortlisted for the Society of Women Writers NSW Book Awards Esther only just escaped the hangman in London. Aged 16, she stood trial at the Old Bailey for stealing 24 yards of black silk lace. Her sentence was transportation to the other side of the world. She embarked on the perilous journey on the First Fleet as a convict, with...

For most New Zealanders, Manapouri is associated with the country's largest and most successful environmental protest, but there is another, less well-known narrative of this time. The struggle to drill a tailrace tunnel under a rocky mountain at Manapouri, blast out a cavernous machine hall at West Arm, and carve a road over the treacherous Wilmot Pass is a powerful...

Gordon McLauchlan is a master storyteller adept at recognising a good yarn when he sees it. Following the success of his Great Tales from New Zealand History, his new collection leads us down uncharted country lanes and tempts us with many little-known tales from New Zealand's farming and rural past, and also explores many aspects of New Zealand and being...

The Unsettled explores what it means to own your past. After Richard Shaw published his acclaimed memoir The Forgotten Coast in 2021, he connected with Pākehā individuals possessing long settler histories. These individuals were beginning to confront the truth behind their families' 'pioneer stories', questioning the foundations of aggressive acts of colonisation and land confiscation upon which these narratives were...

He toi whakairo, he mana tangata. Through artistic excellence, there is human dignity. Toi Te Mana is a landmark account of Māori art from the time of the tupuna (ancestors) to the present day. In 600 pages and over 500 extraordinary images, this volume invites readers to climb onto the waka for a remarkable voyage—from ancestral weavers to contemporary artists...

"You were made a Pakeha, and the name of England was given to you for your tribe. I was made a Maori, and New Zealand was the name given to me. You forgot that there was a space fixed between us of great extent - the sea. You, forgetting that, jumped over from that place to this. I did not...

In a book that is both deeply personal and highly political, Melani Anae recalls the radical activism of Auckland's Polynesian Panthers - the movement modelled on the US Black Panther Party but without guns. The Polynesian Panthers was founded in response to the racist treatment of Pacific Islanders in the era of the Dawn Raids. Central to the group was...

From convict colony to great democracy Australia is one of the world's great success stories: a land long hidden from outsiders, chosen as a convict dumping ground, where—since 1788—people from many backgrounds have built one of the most free, fair, and prosperous countries on earth. By the standards of a harsher time, the early governors tried to respect the original...

A political betrayal. A constitutional crisis. A hidden correspondence. Gough Whitlam was a progressive prime minister whose reign from 1972 proved tumultuous after 23 years of conservative government in Australia. After a second election victory in May 1974, when a hostile Senate refused to vote on his 1975 budget, the political deadlock that ensued culminated in Whitlam's unexpected and deeply...

“From the helicopter I could see the property's waterholes surrounded by paperback trees, its red-stone cliffs lit by the rising sun. And grass, endless seas of grass. Here was the vision splendid—Nat Buchanan's grass castle. Gurindji country. And my country, Australia.” This is big country, the outback, home to the largest cattle and sheep stations in the world. Yet few...

The book covers 45 rich years of State of Origin football, reflecting the triumphs, the pain, the controversies, and the incidents that shape rugby league’s greatest spectacle. Written by league expert Liam Hauser, State of Origin: 45 Years is a fascinating celebration of rugby league and the legendary State of Origin series, which has been one of the most widely...

A breathtaking collection of 200 photographs expertly colourised by Aotearoa New Zealand's premier colourist, Brendan Graham, with commentary from award-winning historian Jock Phillips ONZM Our Land in Colour celebrates the rich story of Aotearoa through the restoration of images never before seen in colour. Two hundred images have been meticulously colourised, opening a window back in time with remarkable detail....

'Behind the foreground narratives of justification, real or symbolic wounds are stored in the archives of cultural memory.' From curriculum to commemoration to constitutional reform, our society is in the grip of memory, a politics and culture marked by waves of loss, grief, absence, and victimhood. Why are certain aspects of the past remembered over others, and why does this...

Welcome to our story, this history. Whichever part of the world the bones of your ancestors lie, wherever their ashes may have been dispersed, here you will find traces of them, and of yourself. It is a story of colonisation and resistance – and a history that has never stopped repeating itself. The New Zealand Wars of the mid-nineteenth century...

'We were to go through and take on targets of opportunity, to shoot up anything we could. Never at any stage can I remember any plan of us coming back, none of that was ever talked about ... We felt it was a suicide mission.' July 1942: the North African campaign rages and the Allies have been forced to retreat...

An epic, award-winning account of Pakeha-Maori relations immediately following Captain Cook's voyages to New Zealand. 'Vivid, convincing and utterly memorable.' —Michael King, North & South Anne Salmond's extraordinary Between Worlds begins with the arrival of Cook's second expedition in 1773 and takes the story through to 1815, with the establishment of the first British missionary settlement in the Bay of...

A magical, substantially true narrative of piracy, zoology, anthropology, danger and adventure in the seventeenth-century Caribbean, Pacific and East Indies The first great English-language travel book, A New Voyage Round the World (1697) is an incomparably vivid, chaotic and fascinating account by the pirate, explorer and naturalist William Dampier of his many adventures. The world he describes sprawls all the...

Following the ongoing success of A Short History of New Zealand, Great Tales of New Zealand History, and Great Tales of Rural New Zealand — all reprinted and still going strong — Gordon McLauchlan has turned his masterful storytelling skills to one of the most important periods in this country's history. Published to coincide with New Zealand's first national day...

Bondi Terror tells the story of the deadliest terror attack in Australian history - in gripping, minute-by-minute detail. The attack would leave 15 people dead, including a 10-year-old girl and an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, and dozens more severely wounded. Bondi Terror reconstructs the massacre in real time, from the first shot fired, and captures the chilling stories of those present,...

In 1877, Kate Edger became the first woman to graduate from a New Zealand university. The New Zealand Herald enthusiastically hailed her achievement as 'the first rays of the rising sun of female intellectual advancement'. Edger went on to become a pioneer of women's education in New Zealand. She also worked tirelessly to mitigate violence against women and children and...

These untold stories, that are absent from our history books, include New Zealand families refusing to let their boys be child soldiers, a Kiwi peacemaker guiding prominent adversaries away from the vicious cycle of revenge, and an entire culture practising non-violence. These are captivating tales showing the immense courage, strength, creativity, and discipline that peacebuilding demands. Hidden Stories of Heroism...

They were airbrushed out of history. Official historian Charles Bean claimed the first Australian ashore at the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915 was an infantry officer. But Bean wasn't there, and a group of Australian and New Zealand army engineers were. Even today, the army is reluctant to accept that sappers were among the very first ANZACs ashore. This...

Remarkable stories of twenty-four inspirational tupuna of Te Tai Tokerau.

We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future. On 26 May 2017, after a historic process of consultation, the Uluru Statement from the Heart was read out. This clear and urgent call for reform to the community from...

In 1840, over 500 Māori leaders put their names to a significant new document: Te Tiriti o Waitangi or the Treaty of Waitangi. Through their signatures, moko or marks, they were making an agreement with the British Crown, represented by Consul and Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson. At stake was the sovereignty of the country, the governance of the land. The meanings...

In a city that has forgotten and erased much of its history, there are still places where traces of the past can be found. Deep histories, both natural and human, have been woven together over hundreds of years in places across Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland, forming potent sites of national significance. This stunning book unearths these histories in three iconic landscapes: Pukekawa/Auckland...

He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni / The Declaration of Independence of New Zealand was signed by fifty-two rangatira from 1835 to 1839. It was a powerful assertion of mana and rangatiratanga, made after decades of Māori and European encounters that had been steadily expanding - both within Aotearoa New Zealand and elsewhere on the globe as Māori...

Winner of the Nonfiction Award 2020 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature Winner of the 2019 NSW Premier's History Award: Australian History Prize Winner of the 2019 Prime Minister's Australian History Prize Winner of the 2019 CHASS Australia Book Prize Australian Christian Book of the Year in 2018 Koby Abberton emerges like a shark on to the sand at Maroubra Beach....

'A signally important text in the canon of Maori history.' - Michael Stevens The dynamics of an evolving southern world are mapped by distinguished archaeologist Atholl Anderson in a new edition of his groundbreaking book from 1998. The Welcome of Strangers traces the early migrations of Waitaha and Kati Mamoe people and the later arrival and settlement of Ngai Tahu....

In a major research project, Glyn Harper and the National Army Museum combined official war photographs with more informal images to provide a moving visual history. Originally published in 2008, Images of War has now been beautifully redesigned as a stunning large-format hardback. While primarily drawn from the Museum's collection, many photographs from private sources were included. From more than...

1973: The incredible true story of the Blythe Star disaster, which left ten men shipwrecked and alone on the wild Southern Ocean off Tasmania. Almost two weeks later they were found on a remote trail on a southern peninsula, and their story would stun the nation ... and leave a powerful legacy in its wake. When the coastal freighter MV...

A captivating and incisive account of New Zealand's Land Wars - from a Māori perspective. From the earliest days of European settlement in New Zealand, Māori have struggled to hold on to their land. Tensions began early, arising from disputed land sales. When open conflict between Māori and Imperial forces broke out in the 1840s and 1860s, the struggles only...

Award-winning and best-selling, Mau Moko is the closest there has ever been to a 'complete' book on moko. 'Very likely to become the definitive work on the subject . . . a big, beautiful, important book.'— Warwick Roger, North and South Taia o moko, hei hoa matenga mou . . .Take your moko, as a friend forever . . ....

The Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a central document in New Zealand history. This lively account tells the story of the Treaty from its signing in 1840, through the debates and struggles of the nineteenth century, to the gathering political momentum of recent decades. The third edition of The Story of a Treaty/He Korero Tiriti takes the narrative...

The New Zealand Wars | Nga Pakanga o Aotearoa by Vincent O'Malley delves into one of the most significant series of conflicts in New Zealand's history. This comprehensive work meticulously examines the wars that were fought between the British Crown and various Māori groups from 1845 to 1872. Through vivid narrative and incisive analysis, O'Malley brings to life the battles...

The Great War for New Zealand by Vincent O'Malley is an authoritative and stirring account of a pivotal chapter in New Zealand history. This monumental work delves into the Waikato War of 1863-64, a conflict that profoundly shaped the course of the nation. O'Malley meticulously chronicles the origins, impact, and aftermath of this significant war, providing readers with a comprehensive...

Haerenga: Early Maori Journeys Across the Globe by Vincent O'Malley offers a fascinating glimpse into the first encounters between Maori and Europeans, not only along New Zealand's shorelines but also in far-flung cities such as Melbourne, Liverpool, and New York. From the late eighteenth century, Maori travellers ventured from New Zealand to explore the world. Their journeys were prompted by...

The incredible true story of one of the most extraordinary and inspirational prison breaks in Australian history. New York, 1874. Members of the Clan-na-Gael—agitators for Irish freedom from the English yoke—hatch a daring plan to free six Irish political prisoners from the most remote prison in the British Empire, Fremantle Prison in Western Australia. Under the guise of a whale...

No symbol better conveys the intrepid spirit of Australia than the flying kangaroo. Whether it's glimpsed on a red-eye flight to an interstate business meeting, before leaving for adventure or holidays, or when longing to return home, that sweep of red defines air travel in Australia. Qantas has always been about connection. It began by connecting Australians across western Queensland's...

Shortlisted for the 2025 Tasmanian Literary Awards Premier's Prize for Non-fiction Longlisted for the 2024 Green Family Tasmanian History Award All families have their secrets, and a convict ancestor or an illegitimate birth were shames that families once buried deep. Among the best-hidden stories in Australia's history are those of the convict orphans. Agnes arrived on a convict transport aged...

Intrigued to discover a convict ancestor in her family tree, Babette Smith decided to investigate her life and the lives of the 99 women who were transported with her on the ship Princess Royal in 1829. Piece by piece, she reveals the story of her ancestor, the indomitable Susannah Watson, who, trapped in the crowded filthy slums of Nottingham, stole...

'Pentridge was a place of murder and mayhem. A bluestone hell. The worst prison Australia has ever seen.' Andrew Kirby, former inmate Welcome to Pentridge, Australia's most infamous prison. In the long-awaited return to his bestselling true crime series on life behind bars, James Phelps has finally turned his attention to HM Prison Pentridge - the bluestone behemoth that was...

A journey between two cultures After more than 200 years of co-existence under the umbrella of a unique treaty, you might think things would be better than ever. In this perceptive and piercing book, John Bluck argues that Pākehā and Māori worlds grow ever more separate. The Aotearoa of today is a landscape of two predominant cultures, overlaid with so...

The wild days of the Palmer River Gold Rush: "What with cannibal blacks, pig-tailed Chinamen in thousands, lynch-law hangings, gambling dens, shanty towns, murders, grog-shops and Italian opera singers, the Palmer River Goldfields—properly spun out—should provide enough television material for general exhibition for the next ten years. This one book, River of Gold, could easily be used as the jumping-off...

An entertaining history of rural life in Aotearoa, told through artefacts, gadgets and ephemera that tell a story that goes deeper than the objects themselves. The most fun you'll ever have learning about rural life in New Zealand. Told through a varied selection of items from the everyday (apples, Red Band gumboots, milk tankers and ride-on mowers) to the weird...

On 25 April 1915, Allied forces made a bold and fateful landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula, a strategically critical locale in present-day Turkey. Their mission was clear: to secure the sea route between Britain and France in the west and Russia in the east. However, after eight gruelling months of intense combat, the campaign ended in failure. Despite this, the...

This book describes one of the most extraordinary and fascinating stories in New Zealand history. In the early part of the last century, several thousand runaway seamen and escaped convicts settled in Maori communities. Jacky Mamon, John Rutherford, Charlotte Badger and many others—this is their largely untold story. They were regarded as unsavoury renegades by the European settlers, but amongst...

Her superb research and sympathetic reconstructions of nineteenth-century Scotland and Australia bring to life a long-forgotten but fascinating group of women. - Siân Rees, author of The Floating Brothel In the early nineteenth century, crofters and villagers streamed into the burgeoning cities of Scotland, and families splintered. Orphan girls, single mothers and women on their own all struggled to feed...

A little book containing so much — a novella, history, eyewitness reports, Māori translation, verse, and images. Both fiction and fact, this fascinating book is a kaleidoscopic exploration of the Battle of Orakau. During three days in 1864, 300 Māori men, women, and children fought an Imperial army and captured the imagination of the world. The battle marked the end...

A prize-winning historical novel that has become a New Zealand classic. This classic has been released in the Popular Penguin format to mark 50 years of publishing in New Zealand. The format reaches further back to 1935, when Allen Lane founded Penguin Books with a clear vision: "We believed in the existence of a vast reading public for intelligent books...

Gordon McLauchlan tempts our imagination with 46 little-known tales from New Zealand's past. Here you will discover that: Auckland applied twice to the Colonial Office to be a separate colony from the rest of New Zealand, more about the man who wanted to be James Cook, when drinking beer legally became an 'art' on the West Coast, whether Kupe was...

Joseph Kinsey is not a name many of us know— or not as well as we know the name Robert Falcon Scott. But from his base in Christchurch, Kinsey—book and art collector, philanthropist, science enthusiast, businessman—forged deep connections with the Antarctic expeditions and the explorers themselves through his tireless work as the agent for various expeditions. Two other New Zealanders...

In the first major national history of Aotearoa New Zealand to be published for 20 years, Professor Michael Belgrave advances the notion that New Zealand's two peoples - tangata whenua and subsequent migrants - have together built an open, liberal society based on a series of social contracts. Frayed though they may sometimes be, these contracts have created a country...

In the Atlas of the New Zealand Wars, five decades of maps and plans from 1834 to 1884 provide remarkable new insight into the deep conflicts running through nineteenth-century Aotearoa. Beginning with early skirmishes off the Taranaki coast and at the Chathams, Volume One follows the tracks inland from the Bay of Islands towards the Hokianga in the Northern Wars;...

Stories and yarns about my favourite bits of Down Under Paul Hogan's ancestors were a couple of Irish blow-ins who arrived in the colony of New South Wales by boat, with a little assistance from the judges of the Old Bailey. Blow-ins from everywhere have been coming ever since, and while it hasn't always been a walk in the park,...

Celebrating over three decades of Māori scholarship, essays from Maranga! Maranga! Maranga! The Call to Maori History, edited by Aroha Harris and Melissa Matutina Williams, draws on work published by the collective Te Pouhere Kōrero in the journal of the same name. Writers include Rawinia Higgins, Melissa Matutina Williams, Arini Loader, Nēpia Mahuika, Alice Te Punga Somerville, Rachel Buchanan, Aroha...

It is estimated up to 100,000 people died in the frontier wars that raged across Australia for more than 150 years. This is equivalent to the combined total of all Australians killed in foreign battles to date. However, there are few memorials marking these first, domestic wars. The Australian Wars was conceived by Rachel Perkins following her award-winning documentary series...