In 1915 the most destructive war ever was consuming Europe. Responding to the call, New Zealand sent a mine-warfare unit to fight the siege for civilisation. “So fierce was this struggle,” Dr Ian McGibbon ONZM says in his Foreword, “that the inexperienced New Zealand tunnellers were initially knocked off balance, but they quickly regain their equilibrium. They proved their mettle in this subterranean conflict (at Arras).. This history, written by an expert on New Zealand’s military engineering, greatly improves our understanding of the Tunnelling Company,… with careful attention to the documentary record. In bringing to light much new material about the company, its members and its achievements, Peter Cooke’s efforts are to be highly commended.”

Bind: paperback

Pages: 232

Dimensions: 180 x 265 mm

Publication Date: 09-11-2021

The legacy of Gallipoli has become one of the most powerful expressions of national belonging in New Zealand and Australia in recent years. But this wasn’t always the case. In Anzac Nations: The legacy of Gallipoli in New Zealand and Australia, 1965–2015, author Rowan Light examines the myth-making around Anzac and how commemoration has evolved – from 1965, when many assumed that the tradition of remembering the Anzacs would not survive beyond the death of the last Gallipoli veteran, to the Anzac Centenary in 2015 when the Australian federal government outspent all other countries, and New Zealand’s centenary programme was the largest commemoration in the country’s history. Anzac Nations explores how societies make meaning and express value and beliefs through practices such as remembrance and commemoration. Why do we see the Gallipoli campaign, fought over a hundred years ago in a far-flung corner of the world, as an expression of national belonging? What shapes this collective remembrance in Australia and New Zealand and how do commemorations differ between the nations? Who has authority over what is – and is not – remembered on 25 April, and why does this national memory focus so heavily on the place and experience of Gallipoli, rather than on other aspects of past violence at home or abroad? Anzac Nations examines three key aspects: the changing and contested meanings of Anzac from the 1960s to the 1980s; the expanded role of the state in commemoration since 1990; and responses to these shifts by Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. In Anzac Nations, Light brings together stories and evidence from both sides of the Tasman, offering a sweeping panorama of memory that includes writers and filmmakers, protestors and prime ministers, and public audiences who have come to see Anzac Day as their own. AUTHOR Rowan Light is a Pākehā historian at the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau where he teaches Aotearoa New Zealand histories. He is also project curator at the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, assisting with research on the history, remembrance and commemoration of the New Zealand Wars.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 256

Dimensions: 240 x 170 mm

Publication Date: 01-03-2022

Author Pamela Wood’s New Zealand Nurses draws on a wealth of nurses’ personal stories to identify the values, traditions, community and folklore of the nursing culture from 1880 – when hospital reforms began to formally introduce ‘modern nursing’ into New Zealand – to 1950, three years after New Zealand severed its final tie as part of the British Empire. In the late nineteenth century, British nurses who had been trained in the system established by Florence Nightingale began to spread across the world. This was the British nursing diaspora and New Zealand was its southernmost landfall. New Zealand Nurses explores the growth of a distinctly Kiwi nursing style and how nurses in this part of the globe responded to, and ultimately came to challenge, imperial influences. New Zealand Nurses is rich in detail and understated humour as it examines the nursing cultures that emerged in a range of different settings and circumstances: from hospitals to homes, rural backblocks to Māori settlements, and from war and disaster zones to nursing through a pandemic. A pleasure to read – there are lots of lively stories and it will have great appeal to nurses and former nurses. – Professor Barbara Brookes MNZM AUTHOR Pamela Wood is a retired academic, registered nurse and independent historian. She taught in undergraduate and postgraduate nursing programmes and postgraduate health programmes for 30 years and is the author of Dirt: Filth and decay in a New World Arcadia.

Bind: paperback

Dimensions: 240 x 170 mm

Publication Date: 30-03-2022

“I’ve found over the many years that, when elections come along, I just sit still at my Beehive desk, buy a coffee, the people around me all change, and I just carry on.” This is the story of Peter McCardle’s journey through the last thirty years in New Zealand politics. Beginning as a National MP, then with New Zealand First as a Cabinet Minister, later as a manager with ACT, completing an unplanned full circle return to the Beehive in the John Key Government. In this journey, Peter worked near to twelve political party leaders, including seven Prime Ministers, and played a leading role for NZ First in the 1996 MMP coalition talks. He created WINZ, subsequently served as senior political advisor to National’s health ministers until 2017, which included Nationals response to the 2009/10 Swine flu pandemic. This health experience helped inform his insight into New Zealand’s political and public response to Covid-19 and omicron. This book shares his insights and views on the Nationals party leadership changes over the years, including the current leadership. Party Hopper may surprise, please, differ from your views, or just entertain. Or all of these. Regardless, it will certainly leave you better informed.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 350

Dimensions: 153 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 15-03-2022

A lot of international games have been played by New Zealand men’s and women’s national teams since the first New Zealand Tournament Team was selected in 1947, but all are covered in this official History of New Zealand Basketball. Also recorded are New Zealand junior selections, national representative results, and the New Zealand leagues from when they emerged. So is the involvement of American, Australian and European players and coaches New Zealand brought in both to widen the league player bases, and to assist broadening the international expertise of locals to ensure the Tall Blacks and Tall Ferns could compete well in World Championship and Olympic events. The book also identifies many New Zealanders who have played some of their basketball in national leagues of other countries. And it traces the basketball politics across the years. Game detail is here—’stats’, as this material is now called. But the real story is about New Zealand basketball people—players, coaches, and administrators. And the very wide selection of photographs reminds the basketball world how many local identities looked in their prime. Twelve of the key ones grace the cover—who can you identify? But there are hundreds more, as the History of New Zealand Basketball covers 75 years.

Pages: 568

Dimensions: 205 x 275 mm

Publication Date: 31-05-2022

From the days even before Christchurch was settled its cathedral has been the focus of ferocious public debate: Where should a cathedral be built? How would it be paid for? Should it be built in wood or stone in an earthquake-prone country? Who should oversee the building? It took far too long to build and its financial position has often been perilous. In recent times there have been fresh quarrels over a visitors’ centre and whether ratepayers should help to pay for necessary earthquake strengthening. And, when the building was left almost in ruins, should it be demolished and rebuilt or should it be restored? And, most important of all to the people of Christchurch, to whom did it really belong? It has been a tranquil and lovely place of devotion and worship, and a venue for the celebration of civic, national and international events. Thousands of tourists have walked its aisles and climbed its tower. It has won fame for the beauty of its music. Along with the Avon/Ōtakaro River, its silhouette appears on all the city’s official signage. Christ Church Cathedral has stood in its square for close to a century and a half. Acclaimed historian Edmund Bohan tells the full and fascinating story of this beloved building, from its begin-nings in an embryonic settlement to its resurrection after disaster. In a lively, approachable text – well-illustrated throughout – he outlines the cathedral’s remarkable past and brings to life the equally remarkable people who have worked and worshipped there. He details the triumphs and the troubles, and looks to a future in which this instantly recognisable church will once again stand as the safe and welcoming heart of the city to which it belongs.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 352

Dimensions: 153 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 14-09-2022

The Fisher Monoplane and early aviation in the Wellington region. Paul Maxim tells the story of the first flights exactly 100 years ago – near Carterton – of an aeroplane wholly constructed in New Zealand.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 80

Publication Date: 01-06-2003

Neil Frances tells the story of the famous Rimutaka Hill marches during the First World War and the re-enactment in September 2015.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 96

Finally, the complete story of NZR’s most powerful conventional steam locomotive class has been documented. Author Jonathan Shingleton details the operational constrictions of the Midland line, history leading up to the development of the KB class, including proposals to transfer X class to the South Island and add boosters. Learn how Midland Line east-bound loads were governed by EO haulage capacity through the Otira tunnel, the manufacture and bedding in of the KBs, their daily operation, the booster operation and maintenance, trialling of KB operations out of Dunedin, a proposal to transfer all KBs to the North Island, and their eventual displacement onto the Main South Line. Detail of the KB operations are neatly interspersed with crew accounts of operating the KB class; the firemen, drivers and fitters. Complementing the text is a lavish selection of black and white and colour images from the era.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 272

Dimensions: 210 x 295 mm

Publication Date: 21-06-2021

Come Back to Mona Vale is a beautifully written, compelling narrative/memoir that sets about unravelling the mysteries and anomalies behind the public history of a wealthy Christchurch business family in the first half of the 20th century. The author-as narrator gradually becomes aware that his family heritage isn’t necessarily the norm, nor what he expected. That family members can’t bear to speak to each other about the most private and family-influenced events, facts and atmospheres. That he grew up shielded from aspects of contemporary reality by money and class. The story unfolds like a crime or detective tale, and also delves into the history of the Canterbury colony, contrasting Christchurch’s public values, aspirations and beauty with its murkier private behaviour. And yet the story is told with a graceful touch and an eye for the vivid, comic and telling detail. Alexander McKinnon’s explorations of his family’s past is the record of a beautiful and grand (yet gradually crumbling) manor interwoven with social history – with a sense of the Gothic, of obsession, and of a tight-knit circle where secrets wreak a terrible climax leading to a form of inter-generational haunting.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 288

Dimensions: 148 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 03-09-2021