The leading historian Keith Sorrenson has collected in three volumes the complete correspondence (174 letters in all) between two distinguished twentieth-century Maori scholars and statesmen, Sir Apirana Ngata and Sir Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa). 'The letters confirm that each man was indeed a totara tree of some magnificence and that each was a tree that stood alone. Even today such trees remain rare,' writes Hirini Moko Mead.

The leading historian Keith Sorrenson has collected in three volumes the complete correspondence (174 letters in all) between two distinguished twentieth-century Maori scholars and statesmen, Sir Apirana Ngata and Sir Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa). 'The letters confirm that each man was indeed a totara tree of some magnificence and that each was a tree that stood alone. Even today such trees remain rare,' writes Hirini Moko Mead.

The leading historian Keith Sorrenson has collected in three volumes the complete correspondence (174 letters in all) between two distinguished twentieth-century Maori scholars and statesmen, Sir Apirana Ngata and Sir Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa). 'The letters confirm that each man was indeed a totara tree of some magnificence and that each was a tree that stood alone. Even today such trees remain rare,' writes Hirini Moko Mead.

When New Zealand's prime minister William Massey joined other heads of British Empire countries in signing the 1919 Treaty of Versailles to end World War I and join the League of Nations, he did not regard the act as a declaration of independence. On the contrary, while Canadian and South African leaders saw membership in the league as a rite of passage towards greater autonomy, New Zealand's leader viewed it as an unwelcome burden and a potential threat to the British Empire. This history of New Zealand's relations with the League of Nations from its inception in 1920 to its demise in 1946 follows the government's transformation in attitude from its initial hostility to detached acceptance and, finally, passionate support in the late 1930s. By chronicling this complex movement, the book traces New Zealand's first tiny, halting steps towards developing its own foreign policy.

From whalers and traders marrying into Maori families in the early 19th century to the growth of interracial marriages in the later 20th, Matters of the Heart unravels the long history of interracial relationships in New Zealand. It encompasses common law marriages and Maori customary marriages, alongside formal arrangements recognized by church and state, and shows how public policy and private life were woven together. It also explores the gamut of official reactions—from condemnation of interracial immorality or racial treason to celebration of New Zealand's unique intermarriage patterns as a sign of its progressive attitude toward race relations. This social history focuses on the lives and experiences of real Maori and Pakeha people and reveals New Zealand's changing attitudes to race, marriage, and intimacy.

From the emergence of the chapel and the wharenui in the nineteenth century to the rejuvenation of carving by Apirana Ngata in the 1920s, Maori carving went through a rapid evolution from 1830 to 1930. Focusing on thirty meeting houses, Ngarino Ellis tells the story of Ngati Porou carving and a profound transformation in Maori art. Beginning around 1830, three previously dominant art traditions – waka taua (war canoes), pataka (decorated storehouses) and whare rangatira (chief's houses) – declined and were replaced by whare karakia (churches), whare whakairo (decorated meeting houses) and wharekai (dining halls). Ellis examines how and why that fundamental transformation took place by exploring the Iwirakau School of carving, based in the Waiapu Valley on the East Coast of the North Island. An ancestor who lived around the year 1700, Iwirakau is credited for reinvigorating the art of carving in the Waiapu region. The six major carvers of his school went on to create more than thirty important meeting houses and other structures. During this transformational period, carvers and patrons re-negotiated key concepts such as tikanga (tradition), tapu (sacredness) and mana (power, authority) – embedding them within the new architectural forms whilst preserving rituals surrounding the creation and use of buildings. A Whakapapa of Tradition tells us much about the art forms themselves but also analyzes the environment that made carving and building possible: the patrons who were the enablers and transmitters of culture; the carvers who engaged with modern tools and ideas; and the communities as a whole who created the new forms of art and architecture. This book is both a major study of Ngati Porou carving and an attempt to make sense of Maori art history. What makes a tradition in Maori art? Ellis asks. How do traditions begin? Who decides this? Conversely, how and why do traditions cease? And what forces are at play which make some buildings acceptable and others not? Beautifully illustrated with new photography by Natalie Robertson, and drawing on the work of key scholars to make a new synthetic whole, this book will be a landmark volume in the history of writing about Maori art.

Examining the role of performance in state-making