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The rapid growth of the American environmental movement in recent decades obscures the fact that long before the first Earth Day and the passage of the Endangered Species Act, naturalists and concerned citizens recognized—and worried about—the problem of human-caused extinction. As Mark V. Barrow reveals in Nature’s Ghosts, the threat of species loss has haunted Americans since the early days of the republic. From Thomas Jefferson’s day—when the fossil remains of such fantastic lost animals as the mastodon and the woolly mammoth were first reconstructed—through the pioneering conservation efforts of early naturalists like John James Audubon and John Muir, Barrow shows how America...
"... A history of the Alexander Turnbull Library"--P. vi.
New Zealand was the last country in the world to be discovered and settled by humankind. It was also the first to introduce full democracy. Between those events, and in the century that followed the franchise, the movements and the conflicts of human history have been played out more intensively and more rapidly in New Zealand than anywhere else on Earth. The Penguin History of New Zealand, a new book for a new century, tells that story in all its colour and drama. The narrative that emerges in an inclusive one about men and women, Maori and Pakeha. It shows that British motives in colonising New Zealand were essentially humane; and that Maori, far from being passive victims of a 'fatal impact', coped heroically with colonisation and survived by selectively accepting and adapting what Western technology and culture had to offer. This book, a triumphant fruit of careful research, wide reading and judicious assessment, was an unprecedented best-seller from the time of its first publication in 2003.
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 that is distinct. This engaging new look at our history examines how.
In a frontier society full of colourful characters in early nineteenth century New Zealand, Jacky Marmon, more commonly known as Cannibal Jack, was more colourful than most. Jumping ship off the New Zealand coast, he first lived among Ngäpuhi at the Bay of Islands, where he acquired five wives and served his chief as a trader and white priest. Joining Hongi Hika's great Musket Wars campaigns against the Tamaki and Kaipara tribes, he claimed to have served as Hika's personal war tohunga. He survived to settle in the Hokianga from 1823 and was involved in Hone Heke's Flagstaff War of 1845. In this biography of a wonderfully curious character, the author of the bestselling Pakeha Maori traces Marmon's life and times, drawing on his own knowledge and research as well as on Marmon's own – not always reliable – personal accounts.
By exploring New Zealand's centennial celebration in 1940, this volume paints a vivid picture of New Zealanders and how they perceived themselves and their relationships to the world at that time. Detailing the Centennial Exhibition, Wellington trade fair, and various other public commemorations, special publications of dictionaries and pictorial surveys, and cultural and art exhibits, this text fully examines how the country and citizens commemorated their history and recognized new opportunities in the changing world landscape.
Through the New Zealand Company, the first European settlers began arriving in New Zealand in the early 1840s among whom were several sets of great grandparents and great great grandparents of mine. The original idea was to write a short history of my father's family and one of my mother's but I became so fascinated by these pioneers and their stories that I wanted to learn more about them and their ancestors. I found Scottish farmers seemingly dispossessed by war; ancestors from Devon who emigrated to America in 1642; I found admirals and generals who sailed and fought all around the world and I found generations of Welsh carpenters, builders and farmers. Their descendants packed themselves and their families into tiny boats and sailed to the bottom of the world. They were fearless and determined to succeed in a brand new world. I am so proud of their achievements and so proud to be part of their story.
Past Perfect is a story of love and loss, prejudice and resolution, as well as the search for selfhood. Prompted by a brush with mortality, her children approaching adulthood and the relationship with her husband being tested, Sue Spencer embarks on a search for meaning in her life-for a better sense of who she might be. Her quest takes her to to Akaroa, to France and back, tracing her genealogy.
People of European descent form the bulk of the population in most of the temperate zones of the world - North America, Australia and New Zealand. The military successes of European imperialism are easy to explain; in many cases they were a matter of firearms against spears. But as Alfred W. Crosby maintains in this highly original and fascinating book, the Europeans' displacement and replacement of the native peoples in the temperate zones was more a matter of biology than of military conquest. European organisms had certain decisive advantages over their New World and Australian counterparts. The spread of European disease, flora and fauna went hand in hand with the growth of populations. Consequently, these imperialists became proprietors of the most important agricultural lands in the world. In the second edition, Crosby revisits his now classic work and again evaluates the global historical importance of European ecological expansion.