Climbing entered the world stage in the 1950s: this was the era that produced not only Sir Edmund Hillary but a strong body of world-class New Zealand climbers. In this important and dramatic book Brian Wilkins, who was part of the adventure, shares his experiences of climbing in the Southern Alps and the Himalayas.

During the New Zealand Alpine Club expedition to the Himalayas in 1954, the year after Everest, Wilkins was the climber most closely associated with Hillary. Hillary’s two narrow escapes from death during the expedition saw Wilkins in a unique position to gauge the character and actions of this legendary figure at a formative stage in the famous climber’s career.

Wilkins’ New Zealand climbing includes the first ascent of the northeast ridge of Mt Aspiring, a gripping drama of survival and human endurance and a test of the ethics of mountaineering.

In this account he also submits the writings of his contemporaries to robust critical attention, writing with warm gentle humour, honesty and insight.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 220

Dimensions: 150 x 230 x 12 mm

Publication Date: 20-12-2013

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world – in 2011, 68 per cent of all Kiwi households had at least one pet: almost half had a cat and nearly a third had a dog. Yet until now no book has explored how pets came to be such an integral part of the New Zealand way of life.

Creature Comforts does just this. By chronicling the major events and ideas that have shaped pet keeping in New Zealand, this fascinating and entertaining book explains the strong relationship we have with our animal friends, and how this has changed over time. It looks at the social impact of fanciers' organisations, the moral influence of the SPCA and other animal welfare groups, the educational role of calf clubs, and the questions raised by animal rights activists. Along the way, it tells the stories of some memorable companion animals.

The book is beautifully illustrated and includes many previously unpublished historical images.

Pages: 292

Dimensions: 200 x 270 mm

Publication Date: 20-11-2013

With less than 2 per cent of the total Māori population holding a doctorate, the need for Māori leadership planning in academia has never been greater. The purpose of this book is to present the experiences of new and emerging Māori academics as a guide for others aspiring to follow.

In 2010 Professor Sir Mason Durie oversaw the creation of the Te Manu Ao Academy at Massey University, designed to advance Māori academic leadership. In partnership with Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, the course looked to develop participants' thinking around effective leadership principles, values and ideas.

This book grew from that programme, in response to the need to create the space for new and emerging Māori academic leaders to speak openly about what leadership means both personally and professionally.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 174

Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm

Publication Date: 20-11-2013

Historians have suggested that Scottish influences are more pervasive in New Zealand than in any other country outside Scotland, yet curiously New Zealand’s Scots migrants have previously attracted only limited attention. A thorough and interdisciplinary work, Unpacking the Kists is the first in-depth study of New Zealand’s Scots migrants and their impact on an evolving settler society.

The authors establish the dimensions of Scottish migration to New Zealand, the principal source areas, the migrants’ demographic characteristics and where they settled in the new land. Drawing from extended case studies, they examine how migrants adapted to their new environment and the extent of influence in diverse areas including the economy, religion, politics, education and folkways. They also look at the private worlds of family, neighbourhood and community, customs of everyday life and leisure pursuits, and expressions of both high and low forms of transplanted culture.

Contributing to international scholarship on migrations and cultural adaptations, Unpacking the Kists demonstrates the historic contributions Scots made to New Zealand culture by retaining their ethnic connections and at the same time interacting with other ethnic groups.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 412

Dimensions: 165 x 235 mm

Publication Date: 20-12-2013

A concise guide to the Kerikeri mission from its inception in 1819 until 1845, when it became a secular settlement and the Stone Store was sold to private owners. It includes a discussion of missionaries and Māori who were involved with the mission, including people such as Hongi Hika, Rewa and Moka.

The book is richly illustrated with photographs from the Kemp House and Stone Store collections of artefacts and objects, once in daily use. It contains a discussion and illustrations of the store accounts, revealing details of daily life at the mission – what food, clothing, tools and other goods were available, where they came from and who they were distributed to.

Pages: 78

Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 20-12-2013

Unlike people who choose to migrate in search of new opportunities, refugees are compelled to leave their homeland. Typically, they are escaping war and persecution because of their ethnicity, their religion or their political beliefs. Since 1840, New Zealand has given refuge to thousands of people from Europe, South America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Refuge New Zealand examines New Zealand's response to refugees and asylum seekers in an historical context. Which groups and categories have been chosen, and why? Who has been kept out and why? How has public policy governing refugee immigration changed over time?

Aspects of New Zealand's response to refugees and asylum seekers considered in the book include: the careful selection of refugee settlers to ensure they will 'fit in'; the preference for 'people like us' and the exclusion of so-called 'race aliens'; the desire for children, especially orphans; responses to the increasing diversity of refugee intakes; the balance between humanitarian, economic and political considerations; and the refugee-like situation of Maori.

As the book also shows, refugees and asylum seekers from overseas have not been the country's only refugees. War, land confiscations and European settlement had made refugees of Maori in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, with displacement and land loss contributing to subsequent Maori social and economic deprivation.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 263

Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm

Publication Date: 20-11-2013

Making a New Land presents an interdisciplinary perspective on one of the most rapid and extensive transformations in human history: that which followed Maori and then European colonisation of New Zealand's temperate islands. This is a new edition of Environmental Histories of New Zealand, first published in 2002, brimming with new content and fresh insights into the causes and nature of this transformation, and the new landscapes and places that it produced.

Unusually among environmental histories, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of change, focusing on international as well as local contexts. Its 19 chapters are organised in five broadly chronological parts: Encounters, Colonising, Wild Places, Modernising, and Contemporary Perspectives. These are framed by an editorial introduction and a reflective epilogue.

The book is well illustrated with photographs, maps, cartoons and other graphics.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 391

Dimensions: 170 x 245 mm

Publication Date: 20-11-2013

For most of his adult life, Charles Brasch’s most intimate companion was his diary. In these journals, written in London during the Second World War, he is a young man searching for answers. Is he a pacifist? Should he join the army? Is he homosexual? Should he marry? Should he return home to New Zealand when the war ends? Are his poems any good? Some questions are resolved in the course of the journals, others not, but it all makes compelling reading. So, too, do the people we meet in these pages: kith and kin, conscientious objectors, civil servants working at Bletchley Park (as Brasch was to), members of the Adelphi Players, fellow fire wardens, refugees from Europe, and artists and writers both English and Kiwi. As Rachel Barrowman writes in her introductory essay, on his return home Brasch was to hold ‘a central place in New Zealand literary life for two decades’, as founder of Landfall, and as patron, mentor and writer. In these splendid journals, he prepares for that role.



I have to think about my return to NZ & the possibility of living there; the thought of it haunts me, part vision, part nightmare … Charles Brasch, 21.6.42

Bind: hardback

Pages: 648

Dimensions: 170 x 245 mm

Publication Date: 15-10-2013