The Books of My Life: A History of New Zealand (Sinclair)

 

Though many historians, caught up as they are in their parochial historical boxes, parochial historical boxes that often provide the scaffolding for various civil, civic, public national faiths, it is essential, if we are to understand the history and culture of the United States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, to compare and contrast those national and far too often mythic histories, with the history and culture of other similar English and British settler societies. Given this it is necessary and essential for historians of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to read the history of each of these other English and British settler societies lest they play into and validate the myths of exceptionalism that are at the heart of the civil religions of each of those new nation-states. Some scholars, of course, Louis Hartz, Thomas Bender, James Belich and others, have attempted to do just that over the years. Nevertheless, despite these comparative histories of these comparative historians, the comparative history of English and British settler societies remains very much in its infancy and very much a marginal practise within the social sciences even today, to, I would argue, their detriment.

Keith Sinclair, one of the second generation of professional Kiwi historians, while punctuating his history of New Zealand with comparisons between New Zealand with the United States, Canada, Australia, and, of course, Great Britain, has written a book on New Zealand history that, since it first appeared in 1959, has acquired the status of a classic among histories of New Zealand. In A History of New Zealand (Auckland: Penguin, revised edition, 2000) Sinclair takes readers on a journey from the settlement of New Zealand by those who we now know as the Maori to the late 1990s.Along the way he touches on the high points of Kiwi political, economic, and demographic history, as any good history should do, and on New Zealand cultural and identity history, the last an exploration that was somewhat novel in 1959.

There is much in A History of New Zealand that should be grist for the comparative English and British settler society mill. Comparative English and British settler society historians will find much of interest in the history of European interactions with the Maori, in the attempt by the British to learn from their treatment of indigenes in what became the United States, Canada, and Australia and apply these lessons to Aotearoa. They can learn much from the impact of utopian ideas that originated in Europe and in how they played themselves out in New Zealand. They historians can learn much from the role capitalist land speculation played in the colonisation of New Zealand. They can learn much from the impact of World War I on New Zealand identity. They can learn much from the impact of depressions on New Zealand. They can learn much from the difficulties associated with an export based economy which NZ was and is almost from the very beginning of European colonisation. They can learn much from the delayed adoption of the Westminster Statute in Aotearoa compared to Canada. They can learn much from the movement of New Zealand out of the orbit of Imperial Britain and into that of Imperial America, particularly in the wake of World War II. They can learn much from the increasing ethnic diversification of New Zealand. They can learn much from the development of the welfare state in 19th and 20th century New Zealand, a welfare state, some argue, that was a leader in progressive and neoliberal reforms thanks particulafrly to the Labour party. And they can learn much from the integration of core nation New Zealand into the modern global economy dominated by the United States in the wake of WWII. 

Highly recommended for anyone interested in the basics of New Zealand history.