Maori and Pakeha in New Zealand Historiography: Preoccupations and Progressions

Extract

Rudyard Kipling thought New Zealand “last, loneliest, least.” No so its historiography. New Zealand can claim an inspired corps of scholars who are probing various aspects of the past. Austin Mitchell, scholar and parliamentarian, whimsically wrote, “New Zealand is one of the few countries having more books than history.” Amusing as this perception is, the fact remains that historians of the New Zealand experience have been pouring out an incredible stream of work—in theses, articles, and books; and this flow is not likely to be dammed in the future, as more adventuresome scholars investigate aspects of class, race, ethnicity, community, health, and related matters. A glance at the available bibliographies provides proof of the swelling stream of writing. The New Zealand Journal of History, which began publication in 1967, ranks as the principal, but by no means only, periodical publishing New Zealand history. The maturity of this journal as a vehicle for New Zealand-related scholarship is a testament to how national history has come into its professional phase, and added sophisticated perspectives and techniques to previous studies which in times past, as in other nation-states, sometimes bordered on the antiquarian.

The recent, 1981, publication of the Oxford History of New Zealand, edited by W.H. Oliver with B.R. Williams and comprising contributions from sixteen scholars, has been widely praised as a new look at the national experience, though reviewers note an internal preoccupation and an inadequate attention to external relations. Neither Japan nor Pearl Harbor is mentioned. The preoccupations and progressions are with New Zealand's society, its anxieties, conflicts, and apprehensions. Gone is the day of lauding the British connection; independence and nationhood mean self-examination even at the possible expense of introspection.