This month we are giving away a copy of The New Zealand Wars by James Belich. To enter the draw, please email your name and address to Alumni Relations Manager Melanie Barr at m.barr@auckland.ac.nz. The winner will be notified on 8 May 2015.
First published in 1986, The New Zealand Wars reshaped our understanding of the "bitter and bloody struggles" between Māori and Pākehā in the New Zealand Wars. Revealing the enormous tactical and military skill of Māori, and the inability of “Victorian interpretation" to acknowledge those qualities, Belich's book offered a very different account of the conflict.
In Belich's view, Māori won the Northern War and stalemated the British in the Taranaki War of 1860-61 only to be defeated by 18,000 British troops in the Waikato War of 1863-64. The secret of effective Māori resistance was an innovative military system, the modern pā: a trench-and-bunker fortification of a sophistication not achieved in Europe until 1915.
This month we are giving away a copy of The New Zealand Wars by James Belich. To enter the draw, please email your name and address to Alumni Relations Manager Melanie Barr at m.barr@auckland.ac.nz. The winner will be notified on 8 May 2015.
First published in 1986, The New Zealand Wars reshaped our understanding of the "bitter and bloody struggles" between Māori and Pākehā in the New Zealand Wars. Revealing the enormous tactical and military skill of Māori, and the inability of “Victorian interpretation" to acknowledge those qualities, Belich's book offered a very different account of the conflict.
In Belich's view, Māori won the Northern War and stalemated the British in the Taranaki War of 1860-61 only to be defeated by 18,000 British troops in the Waikato War of 1863-64. The secret of effective Māori resistance was an innovative military system, the modern pā: a trench-and-bunker fortification of a sophistication not achieved in Europe until 1915.
Belich's larger argument about the impact of historical interpretation still resonates today.
Author
James Belich is the author of numerous books, including Making Peoples (1996), Paradise Reforged (2001) and Replenishing the Earth (2009). Belich is currently Beit Professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History at Oxford University and Director of the Oxford Centre for Global History.
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