Te Ao Hurihuri: The Changing World shows Maori engaged energetically in building and rebuilding their communities through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as Crown policies re-oriented from the acquisition of Maori land to its development. Maori held fiercely to iwi-specific connectedness, community organisation and te reo me ona tikanga (the language and its customs). New kinds of Maori institutions released the dynamism and creativity of tangata whenua, but the struggle continued against a background of social and economic hardship that burdens so many Maori lives. Drawn from the landmark publication, Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History (2014), Te Ao Hurihuri brings the history up to the present.

Tangata Whenua: A History presents a rich narrative of the Māori past from ancient origins in South China to the twenty-first century, in a handy paperback format. The authoritative text is drawn directly from the award-winning Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History; the full text of the big hardback is available in a reader-friendly edition, ideal for students and for bedtime reading, and a perfect gift for those whose budgets do not stretch to the illustrated edition. Maps and diagrams complement the text, along with a full set of references and the important statistical appendix. Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History was published to widespread acclaim in late 2014. This magnificent history has featured regularly in the award lists: winner of the 2015 Royal Society Science Book Prize, shortlisted for the international Ernest Scott Prize, winner of the Te Kōrero o Mua (History) Award at the Ngā Kupu ora Aotearoa Māori Book Awards, and Gold in the Pride in Print Awards. The importance of this history to New Zealand cannot be overstated. Māori leaders emphatically endorsed the book, as have reviewers and younger commentators. They speak of the way Tangata Whenua draws together different strands of knowledge – from historical research through archaeology and science to oral tradition. They remark on the contribution this book makes to evolving knowledge, describing it as ‘a canvas to paint the future on’. And many comment on the contribution it makes to the growth of understanding between the people of this country.

An understanding of the ways of our tūpuna, coupled with the best of new thinking from New Zealand and abroad, has significant potential for sustainable housing models. Colonial settlement and the discriminatory policies of successive governments have challenged Māori connections to whenua and kāinga. Today, home ownership rates for Māori are well below the national average and Māori are over-represented in the statistics of substandard housing. Rebuilding the Kāinga charts the recent resurgence of contemporary papakāinga on whenua Māori. Reframing Māori housing as a Treaty issue, Kake envisions a future where Māori are supported to build businesses and affordable homes on whānau, hapū or Treaty settlement lands. The implications of this approach, Kake writes, are transformative.

"Te Ao Hurihuri. Te Ao Hurihuri, I hear my kuia in my heart, even now. 'Our end is our beginning' - I hear it like a chant, or redemptive prayer, feel it shine like a magical wish-fulfilling gem." Many years before Stella chants these words, a child lies bedridden in hospital. She can see but not touch or speak with her beloved kuia, her dying grandmother. Ever inventive, she leaves her body attempting to follow Maraea to the mythic realm. Looking back after many years, Stella, distracted while trying to write a novel, stares appalled at a 1967 photograph. New Zealand forces has just joined the fray in Vietnam. The My Lai massacre has shocked the world. Stella meets her nemesis and never finishes her anti-war novel. But in time, other tales emerge from the mists of racial memory: this is Te Ao Hurihuri. Here three whanau members, over three generations, are each haunted by an older image, a mysterious painting of a Boer War soldier, bayonet drawn, staring out defiantly, his jubilant right foot resting on the crumpled body of a black tribesman. Each observer - a child, a mother and a grandfather - are bonded by a silent enigma... one that shrouds the suffering indigenous people survive against cruel odds, not of their own making. One of them writes Stella's story. This imaginative cultural memoir, uses simple tales, scattered time frames and voice changes, to evoke war torn themes: love, loss, redemption, forgiveness and above all, the courage vital to survive our own human error. "These are heartfelt stories glowing with the writer's inner voice." Dame Fiona Kidman.