'Throughout its human history, New Zealand has been interpreted and experienced in often radically different ways. Each wave of arrivals to its shores has left its own set of views of New Zealand on the country – applying a new coat of mythology and understanding to the landscape, usually without fully removing the one that lies beneath it.' Encounters is the wide-ranging, audacious and gripping story of New Zealand's changing national identity, how it has emerged and evolved through generations. In this genre-busting book, historian Paul Moon delves into how the many and conflicting ideas about New Zealand came into being. Along the way, he explores forgotten crevices of the nation's character, and exposes some of the mythology of its past and present. These include, for example, the earliest Maori myths and the 'mock sacredness' of the All Blacks in the twenty-first century; the role of nostalgia in our national character, both Maori and Pakeha; whether the explorer Kupe existed; the appeal of the Speight's 'Southern Man'; and ruminations on New Zealand art and landscape. What results is an absorbing piece of scholarship, an imaginative and exuberant epic that will challenge preconceptions about what it means to be a New Zealander, and how our country is understood. Lyrical, breathtaking and provocative, and illustrated with artworks throughout, Encounters offers an extraordinary insight into the beginnings of our country.

New Zealand was the last major habitable land on Earth to be populated. Many associate the discovery of New Zealand with James Cook, but he was not the first to venture to this isolated part of the Earth. When James Cook landed in New Zealand in July 1769 he landed at what is now known as Gisborne, on the east coast of the North Island. It is in the latitude 38°40’S, and Cook was not sailing this latitude accidentally. The west coast of New Zealand was first revealed on a published map in 1648. James Cook knew exactly where he was going; Abel Tasman had been there in 1642 and Cook had a copy of his chart and journal. The motivation behind Tasman’s voyage was profit. He was not voyaging into the unknown for fame, glory or fortune; he was a salaried employee of the Dutch East India Company, a multinational trading company. His mission was to find new lands with goods to trade. He first saw New Zealand on 13th December 1642. Five days later he had a dramatic encounter with the locals; a tribe of Māori called Ngāti Tūmatakōkiri. This was the first meeting of Māori and Europeans. Tasman had not found an empty land; it had already been discovered and settled. New Zealand was discovered by Polynesians from the Central Pacific around 950 AD, but remained only sparsely populated for three hundred years. In approximately 1300 AD a wave of Polynesian migration began. The immigrants that went to New Zealand did so for self-preservation. They risked the voyage to New Zealand to escape warfare, death or starvation. On 19th December 1642 Abel Tasman’s crews met the locals with fatal consequences. Those local Māori were descendants of the crew of the waka Kurahaupō who had arrived in New Zealand about 300 years earlier. Two Voyages follows the journeys of the waka Kurahaupō, its occupants and their descendants; and Abel Tasman and his crew. It follows the journeys from their origins, to their point of coincidence in Golden Bay. This wonderfully illustrated book explores the discovery of New Zealand by the Polynesians, and by the Europeans after them. It looks at the factors giving impetus to the two journeys, the people who undertook them, their routes, the means by which they travelled, and their tragic first meeting. There are many books about the history of New Zealand that begin with the arrival of Europeans; this one ends there.

The first immigrants sailed to New Zealand from the Central Pacific in large double hulled waka built using only natural materials and stone tools. Abel Tasman sailed up the West Coast of New Zealand in 1642. He did not sail for fame or glory, but was to discover new lands with goods to trade back to Europe. This book follows two of these voyages and their dramatic point of coincidence in Golden Bay.

Station Life In New Zealand is a biography by Lady Barker. It chronicles the voyage one of brave woman's experience of moving to New Zealand and making a life in Canterbury between 1866 and 1868.

The New Zealand Wars were a series of conflicts that profoundly shaped the course and direction of our nation’s history. Fought between the Crown and various groups of Māori between 1845 and 1872, the wars touched many aspects of life in nineteenth century New Zealand, even in those regions spared actual fighting. Physical remnants or reminders from these conflicts and their aftermath can be found all over the country, whether in central Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, or in more rural locations such as Te Pōrere or Te Awamutu. The wars are an integral part of the New Zealand story but we have not always cared to remember or acknowledge them. Today, however, interest in the wars is resurgent. Public figures are calling for the wars to be taught in all schools and a national day of commemoration was recently established. Following on from the best-selling The Great War for New Zealand, Vincent O'Malley's new book provides a highly accessible introduction to the causes, events and consequences of the New Zealand Wars. The text is supported by extensive full-colour illustrations as well as timelines, graphs and summary tables.

Foreword by Damon Salesa. 'Story telling is an art deep within human nature.' A timely collection of writings on history, from one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most distinguished scholars. These essays bring forth important questions for New Zealand history about autonomy, restoration and power that continue to reverberate today. They also serve as a pathway into the rigorous and imaginative scholarship that characterised Judith Binney's acclaimed historical writing.