`My latest book, The Origins of an Experimental Society: New Zealand 1769-1860, published by Sam Elworthy’s team at Auckland University Press, was launched on10 May 2025. (vols. 2 and 3 will follow, vol. 2, with luck, to be with the publisher by Christmas 025).
AUP and the Division of Humanities at Otago University hosted the launch, the Pro Vice Chancellor, Professor Hugh Campbell, explaining that I had taught him the art ofusing refreshments to facilitate scholarly conversations, he wanted to return the favour. The snacks were scrumptious, or so I was told! After Professor Campbell expatiated upon my achievements and contributions Professor Tony Ballantyne, erstwhile student in two of my papers and now a senior member of my old department, kindly launched the book. The I spoke. Anyone interested can …
This is the first scholarly history of New Zealand/Aotearoa in more than twenty years. Unlike its predecessors, it marries intellectual and social history while also attending to the distinctive regional variations and tribal identities within the country. While it starts as an ethnography of Europeans who have encountered the Pacific, and especially their engagement with New Zealand, it moves on to focus on the attempt to transplant their dreams into a new land already peopled by the first New Zealanders, the Māori, and the ways in which Māori
attempted to graft their own dreams … .
