Hawke's Bay has a remarkable history; like the rest of New Zealand's, short by world standards - for the place was first settled only in the thirteenth century - but filled with colour, life and adventure. This profusely illustrated book tells that story from its beginnings, through the rumbustious nineteenth century when British settlers flooded into the region, on into the twentieth century of provincial life, and finally into the twenty-first with its lifestyles and new vision of district place.The history of Hawke's Bay is a story of people - colourful characters whose lives lent such depth to Hawke's Bay's world. And it is a story of hope in adversity, of ambition, of recovery from disaster, and of success despite all the odds.This revised and updated second edition includes new photographs, further details and additional maps and material.

Hawke's Bay has a remarkable history, brief by world standards, yet filled with colour, pace and life. This illustrated history covers the broad sweep of Hawke's Bay's past, from the Maori history of the district to Hawke's Bay's settler era, the highs and lows of the twentieth century with its wars, depressions and booms; and the social transformations of the early twenty-first century.

A slice in the history of New Zealand's colonial development capturing the political economic and social life of Hawke's Bay showing how the first settlers continued to shape developments in the region well into the 1950's.