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

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The book is beautifully illustrated and includes many previously unpublished historical images.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

This book should be read by all young New Zealanders. It is a story of uncommon bravery and sacrifice made in an earlier time and which, who knows, they may one day be called upon to emulate.The story of Bomber Command has been told many times, but rarely has it been painted as vividly as this accounting of Artie Ashworth's experiences. The strain of flying over the most heavily defended cities in the world, night after night for years, will be obvious to any reader.This was also a time when the development of aero-engines and aircraft as in its infancy and navigation was largely by clock and compass.
It is a tragedy that after effects of malaria should cut short such a promising career as Artie's.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 301

Dimensions: 147 x 210 x 19 mm

Publication Date: 30-11-2012

These fascinating 'tales and reminiscences of the Golden Coast direct from Westland's earliest pioneers' were originally compiled by Carl Pfaff for The Diggers' Story, first published in 1914 to mark the 50th anniversary of the gold rushes that transformed this remote part of New Zealand. Long out of print, the book has been thoughtfully edited and expanded for today's readers by Hokitika Museum director Julia Bradshaw.

This new edition of The Diggers' Story features additional stories and information, and is enlivened by more than 160 black and white images and 32 pages of exquisite colour illustrations, many of them previously unpublished. This compelling , richly illustrated record of teh gold rushes will be essential reading for anyone interested in the West Coast's explosive and romantic history.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 215 x 250 mm

Publication Date: 20-11-2014

Have you ever wondered...



• Who was the youngest WW2serviceman to fight in battle?



• How low did the Dambusters fly?



• How many ships were sunk at Pearl Harbor?



From the Battle of Britain to the Siege of Leningrad,the horrors of the Holocaust to the D-Day landings, on the Home Front and abroad, the Second World War changed the political, social and economic structure of the world. Through its battles, aircraft, weapons, soldiers, campaigns and heroes, this comprehensive miscellany is a compelling guide to one of the most destructive and all-encompassing wars the world has ever seen.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 240

Dimensions: 116 x 182 mm

Publication Date: 04-08-2014

‘You could say that the 1930s saw the highpoint of Macaroni Cheese.’

‘New Zealand kitchens of the late twentieth century became increasingly spacious, as the average number of household members declined.’

This engrossing history of the domestic kitchen covers 10 decades that saw our culinary

traditions accommodate extraordinary changes in technology and the irresistible process of globalisation. Each chapter surveys the external influences on households and their kitchens, samples the dishes prepared during the decade, and discusses the structure of meals. A study of kitchen equipment and design then closes each chapter, cumulatively revealing more innovation in these aspects than in what we ate.

Kitchens is the culmination of a 10-year research and writing project by anthropologist

Helen Leach, supported by the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand, focusing on the material culture of cooking by New Zealanders living in the past two centuries. The project has led to the publication of From Kai to Kiwi Kitchen (2010), The Pavlova Story (with Mary Browne, 2008), The Twelve Cakes of Christmas (with Mary Browne and Raelene Inglis, 2011) and this book.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 264

Dimensions: 215 x 285 mm

Publication Date: 20-11-2014

Annie's War is a remarkable book. There have been many published collections of soldiers' diaries and letters from the First World War, but never a first-hand account of one New Zealand family's life in England during these challenging and frightening years.

When her sons, Oswald and Seton, decided they wanted to serve as pilots, which meant enlisting in Britain, Annie Montgomerie decreed that the whole family would go too. So from 1916 to 1919 they lived in London, facing Zeppelin attacks, giving hospitality to young New Zealand friends who left to fight (and sometimes never came back), watching Oswald and Seton go off to war, and suffering in the influenza epidemic.

Through all this Annie kept a diary, in which she recorded her deep love and concern for her family, her hatred of the war, her forthright, amusing an proudly Kiwi views on the English and myriad fascinating details about wartime London life. Annie's granddaughter, Susanna Montgomerie Norris, has transcribed and edited this extraordinary account, along with many letters and diary excerpts from her pilot father, Seton. Richly illustrated with contemporary photographs and other memorabilia, Annie's War offers a unique and compelling view of a crucial time in world history.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 256

Dimensions: 175 x 228 mm

Publication Date: 10-11-2014

White Ghosts, Yellow Peril is the first book ever to explore all sides of the relationship between China and New Zealand, and the peoples of China and New Zealand, during the whole of the seven or so generations after they initially came into contact.

The Qing Empire and its successor states from 1790 to 1950 were vast, complex and torn by conflict. New Zealand, meanwhile, grew into a small, prosperous, orderly province of Europe. Not until now has anyone told the story of the links and tensions between the two countries during those years so broadly and so thoroughly.

The reader keen to know about this relationship will find in this book a highly readable portrait of the lives, thoughts and feelings of Chinese who came to New Zealand and New Zealanders who went to China, along with a scholarly but stimulating discussion of race relations, government, diplomacy, war, literature and the arts.

White Ghosts, Yellow Peril for some years to come will be the key general text in the field of the early history of New Zealand and China.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 384

Dimensions: 195 x 255 mm

Publication Date: 15-09-2014

Explorer Jules-Sebastien-Cesar Dumont d'Urville (1790-1842) is sometimes called France's Captain Cook. Born less than a year after the beginning of the French Revolution, he lived through turbulent times. He was an erudite polymath: a maritime explorer fascinated by botany, entomology, ethnography and the diverse languages of the world. As a young ensign he was decorated for his pivotal part in France's acquisition of the famous Venus de Milo.

D'Urville's voyages and writings meshed with an emergent French colonial impulse in the Pacific. In this magnificent biography Edward Duyker reveals that d'Urville had secret orders to search for the site for a potential French penal colony in Australia. He also effectively helped to precipitate pre-emptive British settlement on several parts of the Australian coast. D'Urville visited New Zealand in 1824, 1827 and 1840. This wide-ranging survey examines his scientific contribution, including the plants and animals he collected, and his conceptualisation of the peoples of the Pacific: it was he who first coined the terms Melanesia and Micronesia.

D'Urville helped to confirm the fate of the missing French explorer Laperouse, took Charles X into exile after the Revolution of 1830, and crowned his navigational achievements with two pioneering Antarctic descents.

Edward Duyker has used primary documents that have long been overlooked by other historians. He dispels many myths and errors about this daring explorer of the age of sail and offers his readers grand adventure and surprising drama and pathos.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 664

Dimensions: 170 x 245 mm

Publication Date: 15-09-2014

For the men and women of the skilled trades in the early 20th century, the skills and knowledge of their respective crafts were a source of identity and pride. Together with the so-called unskilled, who built the infrastructure for the new society, these workers laid the cultural and social foundations of a new and fairer society.
This book uses photographs to show two processes fundamental to creating a new society: the transformation of swamp into farmland then cityscape, and the transplantation of the knowledge and skill acquired in the Old World that were essential to building a new world.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 176

Dimensions: 200 x 270 mm

Publication Date: 18-08-2014