The Fauna of New Zealand series has been widely acclaimed for its role in presenting New Zealand's unique invertebrate fauna to the world.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 226

Publication Date: 19-12-2013

Landcare Research Science Series No. 2



A natural extension to Version 3, explaining the methods used to develop the New Zealand Soil Classification, it includes discussion of the rational for class recognition and definition. Aiming to provide a concise account useful for soil taxonomists, users and students of soil classification. This report is concerned with the top three levels of the hierarchy: order; group; and subgroup.

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Pages: 71

Publication Date: 20-12-2013

The Fauna of New Zealand series has been widely acclaimed for its role in presenting New Zealand's unique invertebrate fauna to the world

Bind: paperback

Pages: 307

Publication Date: 20-12-2013

The Fauna of New Zealand series has been widely acclaimed for its role in presenting New Zealand's unique invertebrate fauna to the world

Bind: paperback

Pages: 128

Publication Date: 20-12-2013

The Fauna of New Zealand series has been widely acclaimed for its role in presenting New Zealand's unique invertebrate fauna to the world

Bind: paperback

Pages: 112

Publication Date: 20-12-2013

Climbing entered the world stage in the 1950s: this was the era that produced not only Sir Edmund Hillary but a strong body of world-class New Zealand climbers. In this important and dramatic book Brian Wilkins, who was part of the adventure, shares his experiences of climbing in the Southern Alps and the Himalayas.

During the New Zealand Alpine Club expedition to the Himalayas in 1954, the year after Everest, Wilkins was the climber most closely associated with Hillary. Hillary’s two narrow escapes from death during the expedition saw Wilkins in a unique position to gauge the character and actions of this legendary figure at a formative stage in the famous climber’s career.

Wilkins’ New Zealand climbing includes the first ascent of the northeast ridge of Mt Aspiring, a gripping drama of survival and human endurance and a test of the ethics of mountaineering.

In this account he also submits the writings of his contemporaries to robust critical attention, writing with warm gentle humour, honesty and insight.

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Pages: 220

Dimensions: 150 x 230 x 12 mm

Publication Date: 20-12-2013

The Fauna of New Zealand series has been widely acclaimed for its role in presenting New Zealand's unique invertebrate fauna to the world. On-line extracts of this edition are available.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 82

Publication Date: 10-02-2014

Writer Elspeth Sandys was born during the Second World War, the result of a brief encounter between two people who would never meet again. The first nine months of her life were spent in the Truby King Karitane Hospital in Dunedin, where she was known by her birth name, Frances Hilton James. This would change with her adoption into the Somerville family. A new birth certificate was issued and Frances James became Elspeth Sandilands Somerville.

Tom and Alice Somerville, Elspeth's new parents, lived with their son John in Dunedin's Andersons Bay. While Elspeth was happy among the ebullient and welcoming Somerville clan, she had a difficult relationship with her adoptive mother, who was frequently hospitalised with mental health problems.

Elspeth's search for her birth parents did not begin until much later in her adult life. What she discovered after an exhaustive search provided answers that were both disturbing and, ultimately, rewarding.

What Lies Beneath is a searing, amusing, and never less than gripping tale of a difficult life, beautifully told.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 165 x 215 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

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