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Biogeography and Evolution in New Zealand. Michael Heads.

This is the first comprehensive scientific overview of New Zealand biogeography (the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in space and time). It provides a thorough review of the systematics and distribution of our major plant and animal groups and reflects on the uniqueness of New Zealand, a kind of biological ‘parallel universe’, and what this can tell us about evolution.

The Broken Decade: Prosperity, Depression and Recovery in New Zealand, 1928-39. Malcolm McKinnon.

The broken decade is the first book-length account of the Depression to appear since Tony Simpson’s 2 books in 1990, The Slump and The Sugarbag Years. Beginning by outlining the prosperous years of the late 1920s, McKinnon goes on to analyse the Depression era year by year, with an impressive eye for detail that will ensure this book becomes an essential reference work.

Don’t Dream it’s Over: Reimagining Journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand - He Wawata Mutunga Kore: Hei Whakarauora te Reo Pūrongo ki Aotearoa. Eds. Emma Johnson, Giovanni Tiso, Sarah Illingworth and Barnaby Bennett.

In an age when time-honoured journalistic practices and institutions are being unceremoniously dumped, the slow death of public broadcasting and the overbearing influence of social media, the 35 essays in this book explore how a critical, informed journalism that serves the public interest might continue to thrive in Aotearoa and constitute an in-depth discussion of a rapidly changing industry.

The Great War for New Zealand : Waikato 1800-2000. Vincent O’Malley.

While World War I has inspired countless monographs, the war that is probably the most decisive in New Zealand’s history, the Waikato War of 1863-64, has received comparatively far less attention. This landmark conflict defined the pattern of Māori-Pākehā relations for generations with devastating impacts for Tainui and for iwi everywhere. O’Malley tells the story of the conflict, its origins and aftermath, and considers the process of historical forgetting that his book and other initiatives, like the proposal for a national holiday, aim to overcome.

Protecting Paradise: 1080 and the Fight to Save New Zealand’s Wildlife. Dave Hansford.

Emotions run high in the debate around this most controversial of pest-control methods. Sometimes they spill over into violent confrontation. In this book, science and environment journalist David Hansford tries to examine dispassionately the arguments against 1080 use, and comes to the overwhelming conclusion that claims about 1080 are simply wrong. We are faced with a choice; either we use 1080 or we watch more of our native wildlife disappear.

Rebooting the Regions: Why Low or Zero Growth Needn’t Mean the End of Prosperity. Ed. Paul Spoonley.

This volume is a contribution to the debate on the impacts of long-term demographic changes on our regional economies. These include a structural ageing of the population combined with high rates of immigration, concentrating people in greater Auckland at the expense of the rest of the country. How will our regions respond to the challenges ahead?

The World, the Flesh & The Devil: The Life and Opinions of Samuel Marsden in England and the Antipodes, 1765-1838. Andrew Sharp.

Andrew Sharp, Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Auckland, has written a comprehensive new biography of Marsden that weaves together the seemingly conflicting aspects of his character and experiences in different places (England, New South Wales, New Zealand and the Society Islands), by giving proper weight to Marsden’s evangelical Christian worldview through which he understood his relation to others, the world and God.