by Vincent O’Malley. Published by Bridget Williams Books, 2019. Reviewed by Tony Eyre

Historian Vincent O’Malley’s latest book, The New Zealand Wars Ngā Pakanga O Aotearoa, is a concise overview of the New Zealand Wars between Māori and the Crown, spanning the nearly 30-year period between 1845 and 1872.

The book sets the scene in its introductory chapter by outlining the many players on both sides of the conflicts and then provides a useful background of how the name for these wars has changed over the years from that of the Māori Wars to such alternatives as the Land Wars, Colonial Wars and now to the more accepted New Zealand Wars with its Māori equivalent, Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa.

The early chapters deal with the Northern and Central wars and conflicts of the 1840s with such household names as Hone Heke and Te Rauparaha taking on the military might of the Crown. Subsequent chapters cover the Taranaki, Waikato, Tauranga, West Coast and East Coast Wars of the 1860s, with the Crown determined to assert its sovereignty through forced conflict, invasion and confiscation of Māori land to satisfy settler greed for land ownership.

To me this is a most important book for New Zealanders of all ages to learn about a painful chapter in our colonial past that has not been taught in our schools. The consequences of the New Zealand Wars continue to have far reaching affects for us today as a nation, and particularly for Māori over land grievances and over-representation in poverty, health and prison statistics. The book deserves to become a valuable resource for teaching New Zealand history in our schools.

This is also a very attractive book, interspersed with photographs, maps and colour images of early colonial drawings and watercolours and the book design and layout, with plenty of sub-headings, makes the narrative very readable and engaging.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 241 September 2019: 28