History (457)

Tracking Captain Thomas

ISBN: 9781877303630

Author: Colin Amodeo    Publisher: The Caxton Press

The continuing myth that Canterbury was born in December 1850 with the arrival of the First Four Ships has to be dispelled. Canterbury did not, like the legenda...


The continuing myth that Canterbury was born in December 1850 with the arrival of the First Four Ships has to be dispelled. Canterbury did not, like the legendary Athena, spring 'fully-armed from the head of Zeus' (in this case, John Robert Godley) as succeeding generations after 1851 have been led to believe. So much of the initial work was carried out by the Canterbury Association Chief Surveyor Captain Thomas; so much of this effort, intentionally or unintentionally, was obscured by the settlers of the 1850s, Thomas deserves recognition as a Canterbury founder.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 296


Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm


Publication Date: 24-04-2017


Tags: Biography   History   New Zealand
$49.95
We Could Be Heroes

ISBN: 9781927145869

Authors: Gary Morrison, Penelope Minchin-Garvin, Terri Elder    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

Zeus – or Jupiter in his Roman manifestation – could shake Mount Olympus with the nod of his head, and send thunder and lightning across the heavens. Perseu...


Zeus – or Jupiter in his Roman manifestation – could shake Mount Olympus with the nod of his head, and send thunder and lightning across the heavens. Perseus was given winged boots with which he could fly. The gods and heroes of the Greeks and Romans were powerful. Yet they were also complex, subject to human emotions and relationship troubles. The 87 artefacts and eight essays in this richly illustrated catalogue offer an insight into their complex world, a world that is in some ways familiar, but in others very distant from our own. ‘We Could Be Heroes’celebrates the stories of their adventures, disputes, conflicts and love interests and is published to accompany the inaugural exhibition at the Teece Museum of Classical Antiquities in 2017. Many beautiful, rare and valuable artefacts are on display in this first significant exhibition of the Logie Collection after the devastating Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. The exhibition also marks the return of the University of Canterbury to its first home in the Christchurch Arts Centre, the original site of Canterbury College. Gary Morrison is a senior lecturer in the Classics Department at the University of Canterbury. Penelope Minchin-Garvin and Terri Elder are co-curators of antiquities in the Teece Museum of Classical Antiquities at the University of Canterbury, the first museum of classical antiquities in New Zealand, and the new home of the James Logie Memorial Collection.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 204


Dimensions: 210 x 270 mm


Publication Date: 15-05-2017


$29.99
Phoney Wars : New Zealand Society in the Second World War

ISBN: 9780947522230

Authors: Stevan Eldred-Grigg, Hugh Eldred-Grigg    Publisher: Otago University Press

Phoney Wars looks at the lives of New Zealanders during the greatest armed struggle the world has ever seen: the Second World War. It is not a political, econom...


Phoney Wars looks at the lives of New Zealanders during the greatest armed struggle the world has ever seen: the Second World War. It is not a political, economic or military history; rather it explores what life was like during the war years for ordinary people living under the New Zealand flag. It questions the war as a story of ‘good’ against ‘bad’. All readers know that the Axis powers behaved ruthlessly, but how many are aware of the brutality of the Allied powers in bombing and starving ‘enemy’ towns and cities? New Zealand colluded in and even carried out such brutal aggressions. Were we, in going to war, really on the side of the angels? Contrary to the propaganda of the time – and subsequent memory – going to war did not unite New Zealanders: it divided them, often bitterly. People disagreed over whether or not we should fight, what we were fighting for and why, who was fighting, who was paying, and who was dying. In this provocative and moving book, Stevan and Hugh Eldred-Grigg explore New Zealanders’ hopes and fears, beliefs and superstitions, shortages and affluence, rationing and greed, hysteria and humour, violence and kindness, malevolence and generosity, to argue that New Zealand need not have involved itself in the war at all.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 424


Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm


Publication Date: 13-10-2017


Tags: History   New Zealand
$49.95
Cleansing The Colony

ISBN: 9781988531069

Author: Kristyn Harman    Publisher: Otago University Press

Everyone knows Australia was once a penal colony, but few realise that New Zealander prisoners were sent there. During the mid-nineteenth century at least 110 p...


Everyone knows Australia was once a penal colony, but few realise that New Zealander prisoners were sent there. During the mid-nineteenth century at least 110 people were transported from New Zealand to serve time as convict labourers in the penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). Even more were sentenced by colonial judges to the harsh punishment of transportation, but somehow managed to avoid being sent across the Tasman Sea. In examining the remarkable experiences of unremarkable people, this fascinating book provides insights into the lives of people like William Phelps Pickering, a self-made entrepreneur turned criminal; Margaret Reardon, a potential accomplice to murder and convicted perjurer; and Te Kumete, a Māori warrior transported as a rebel. Their stories, and others like them, reveal a complex society overseen by a governing class intent on cleansing the colony of what was considered to be a burgeoning criminal underclass. This lively book also offers insights into penal servitude in Van Diemen’s Land as revealed through the lived experiences of the men and sole woman transported from New Zealand. Whether Māori men serving time for political infractions, white-collar criminals, labourers, vagrants or the soldiers sent to fight the empire’s wars, each convict’s experiences reveal something about the way in which the British Empire sought to discipline, punish and reform those who trespassed against it.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 284


Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm


Publication Date: 10-11-2017


Tags: History   New Zealand
$35.00
New China Eyewitness

ISBN: 9781927145944

Author: Beattie & Bullen    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

‘New China Eyewitness’ is the fascinating account of the 1956 visit to the People’s Republic of China by a group of prominent New Zealanders – including...


‘New China Eyewitness’ is the fascinating account of the 1956 visit to the People’s Republic of China by a group of prominent New Zealanders – including Roger Duff, James Bertram, Evelyn Page, Angus Ross and Ormond Wilson – and of how Canterbury Museum came to acquire the largest collection of Chinese art in New Zealand. At the centre of the book is the eloquent diary kept by Canterbury Museum director Dr Roger Duff, detailing his efforts to bring to Christchurch the collection of antiquities gifted to the museum by long-time China resident, New Zealander Rewi Alley. Through Alley’s contacts with premier Zhou Enlai and Duff’s diplomatic skills they obtained the sanction of the Chinese government to circumvent its own export ban on antiquities and permit the gifting of seven crates of treasures to Christchurch. These objects were the basis for the museum’s Hall of Oriental Arts and their arrival led to a collections policy dedicated to Chinese art. Beautifully written and illustrated, ‘New China Eyewitness’ offers a rare glimpse of foreigners’ views of China during a period of rapid social, political and cultural change, and at a time of unusual political and cultural tolerance.


Bind: hardback


Pages: 176


Dimensions: 173 x 240 mm


Publication Date: 07-12-2017


Tags: Business   Education   History   New Zealand
$59.99 $24.99
Fifty Years of Flying Fun

ISBN: 9781909808270

Author: Rod Dean    Publisher: Grub Street

Fifty Years of Flying Fun covers, in a roughly chronological order, over fifty continuous years of flying. This ranges from joining the RAF in 1962, through h...


Fifty Years of Flying Fun covers, in a roughly chronological order, over fifty continuous years of flying. This ranges from joining the RAF in 1962, through his intriguing first operational tour on Hunters in Aden, the early days of the Jaguar in Germany and, finally in the RAF, an almost outrageous two years flying the Jaguar and Hunter with the Sultan of Oman’s Air Force. His subsequent civil flying has been exclusively in the General Aviation and flying display fields as a flying instructor and well known display pilot, including being involved in many varied and interesting display-related episodes. With in excess of 7,000 flying hours on 59 different types – and only one aircraft (Spencer Flack’s Mustang) with a working autopilot – Rod gives a clear, and largely humorous, insight into the operation of a cross section of piston and jet engine vintage aircraft and his undoubted fifty years of fun since the first solo on 19 March 1963. Fifty Years of Flying Fun is not just a book for the aviation enthusiast, but for anyone wanting to learn about any aspect of flying history through the memoir of a man who lived through it all.


Bind: hardback


Pages: 192


Dimensions: 153 x 234 mm


Publication Date: 20-05-2015


Tags: History   Military   Transport
$55.00
The Lives of Colonial Objects

ISBN: 9781927322024

Author: Annabel Cooper    Publisher: Otago University Press

The Lives of Colonial Objects is a sumptuously illustrated and highly readable book about things, and the stories that unfold when we start to investigate them....


The Lives of Colonial Objects is a sumptuously illustrated and highly readable book about things, and the stories that unfold when we start to investigate them. In this collection of 50 essays the authors, including historians, archivists, curators and Māori scholars, have each chosen an object from New Zealand’s colonial past, and their examinations open up our history in astonishingly varied ways. Some are treasured family possessions such as a kahu kiwi, a music album or a grandmother’s travel diary, and their stories have come down through families. Some, like the tauihu of a Māori waka, a Samoan kilikiti bat or a flying boat, are housed in museums. Others – a cannon, a cottage and a country road – inhabit public spaces but they too turn out to have unexpected histories. Things invite us into the past through their tangible, tactile and immediate presence: in this collection they serve as 50 paths into New Zealand’s colonial history. While each chapter is the story of a particular object, The Lives of Colonial Objects as a whole informs and enriches the colonial history of Aotearoa New Zealand.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 376


Dimensions: 255 x 225 mm


Publication Date: 20-07-2015


$50.00
Ghosts of Anzac

ISBN: 9780473322069

Author: Onesimus William Howe    Publisher: Langsford Publishing

Old soldiers never tell their war stories? This one did: "General Johnstone tried to compliment us on our 'work' but was cut up too much when he heard of our lo...


Old soldiers never tell their war stories? This one did: "General Johnstone tried to compliment us on our 'work' but was cut up too much when he heard of our losses. He was visibly affected. We marched to Mametz Wood and there Col. Plugge also tried to address us but he could not control his feelings either. We went into the trenches with 804 men. Came out with 201. Our casualties for the two stints were 603. Plugge was far too cut up to say a word about it. We camped in the woods for the night..." Onesimus William Howe served in the Auckland Infantry Regiment. His unit was the first to hit the beach at Anzac Cove in Gallipoli. In fact, Howe's experiences at Gallipoli are quoted by historian Chris Pugsley in his book Gallipoli - The New Zealand Story. But it is what happened next that defined WWI for the ANZACS, when they came face to face with heavily armed Germans at the Somme. In this important new work, taken directly from his battlefield diary, see the events of 1916 as if you are there: "That left me in charge of the gun. Percy and I are the only ones left on this gun now..." Compelling, honest, surprising, uncensored.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 180


Publication Date: 30-04-2015


Tags: History   Military   New Zealand
$29.99
Cricketing Colonists : The Brittan Brothers in Early Canterbury

ISBN: 9781927145685

Authors: Geoff Rice, Frances Ryman, Geoffrey Rice    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

John Robert Godley, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, James Edward FitzGerald - these are the names that usually come to mind as the founders of Canterbury. But there wa...


John Robert Godley, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, James Edward FitzGerald - these are the names that usually come to mind as the founders of Canterbury. But there was a fourth vitally important individual, arguably equal in importance to FitzGerald, whose story remains largely unknown. William Guise Brittan led the first Canterbury Pilgrims, chaired the Society of Canterbury Colonists and controlled the Land Office in early Christchurch. The 'bell-wether man' of the Canterbury project, he was the first to pay for land land in the settlement, inspiring others to follow his example. William Guise Brittan was also known as 'the Father of Cricket' in Canterbury and established three churches in Christchurch. The city's cathedral was built with stone from his Halswell quarry. His elder brother Joseph, who joined him in 1852, had a significant influence on local politics, as a provincial secretary, and was expected to follow FitzGerald as superintendent, though he lost the 1857 election. A former newspaper owner, he also founded the "Canterbury Standard" in 1854 as a rival to the "Lyttelton Times". He too, was a cricket enthusiast. The Brittan brothers were leading figures in the Canterbury settlement, and made substantial contributions to the province, yet they were unpopular, both their careers ended in failure and disappointment and they have been mostly forgotten. This timely and fascinating account seeks to explain why, exploring their work and family lives (and their bank accounts), and along the way providing a richly detailed panorama of life and politics in early Chistchurch.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 350


Dimensions: 155 x 228 mm


Publication Date: 20-08-2015


Tags: Biography   History   New Zealand
$39.99
Worlds Apart : A History of the Pacific Islands 2nd Ed

ISBN: 9781927145029

Author: Ian Campbell    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

The Pacific Islands remain for most people a region of obscurity or puzzlement. The attention of news media is attracted by atypical events such as political vi...


The Pacific Islands remain for most people a region of obscurity or puzzlement. The attention of news media is attracted by atypical events such as political violence that contradict the peaceful tourist image of sun, sea and smiling faces. Journalists, travellers, business people and the general public have few paths to access specialised knowledge about the complex and changing 'neighbourhood' to New Zealand's north and Australia's northeast. Ian Campbell's History of the Pacific Islands, first published in 1989, served this purpose for many years, and its successor, Worlds Apart, has proved to be equally serviceable, bringing into focus the past and present of this diverse and endlessly misunderstood region. For the second edition this concise and readable narrative was revised to bring the story of the island world - from its first settlement by raft and canoe voyagers, through the period of western contact and acculturation - up to 2010. As with its earlier versions, this book was written not for fellow academics, but for the many people who want to know 'what happened'.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 392


Publication Date: 01-06-2015


Tag: History
$45.00
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