"Drawing upon the work of archaeologists and historians, quoting extensively from the myths and songs recorded by Maori writers of the last century, Margaret Orbell vividly evokes the Maori experience of Aotearoa, while Geoff Moon's remarkable photographs present the country's landscape, birds, fish, insects, reptiles and plants"--Taken from dust jacket,

"This is the final work in the trilogy dealing with the great Tuhoe tohunga Hohepa Kereopa. After spending five years working with Hohepa, Paul Moon's extraordinary concluding volume is a powerful, moving work, evoking the majesty of the Ureweras, delving into the metaphysical realm of one of Maoridom's most renowned tohunga and traversing a remarkable period of New Zealand history"--Back cover.

'Though stronger evidence of this horrid practice prevailing among the inhabitants of this coast will scarcely be required, we have still stronger to give.' - Captain James Cook This Horrid Practice uncovers an unexplored taboo of New Zealand history - the widespread practice of cannibalism in pre-European Maori society. Until now, many historians have tried to avoid it and many Maori have considered it a subject best kept quiet about in public. Paul Moon brings together an impressive array of sources from a variety of disciplines to produce this frequently contentious but always stimulating exploration of how and why Maori ate other human beings, and why the practice shuddered to a halt just a few decades after the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand. The book includes a comprehensive survey of cannibalism practices among traditional Maori, carefully assessing the evidence and concluding it was widespread. Other chapters look at how explorers and missionaries saw the practice; the role of missionaries and Christianity in its end; and, in the final chapter, why there has been so much denial on the subject and why some academics still deny that it ever happened. This Horrid Practice promises to be one of the leading works of New Zealand history published in 2008. It is a highly original work that every New Zealand history enthusiast will want to own and read.

New Zealand in the 1820s had no government or bureaucratic presence; no newspapers were published; the literate population was probably no more than a couple of dozen people at any one time. Early explorers' assessments of New Zealand were haphazard at best - few knew what to make of this foreign land and its people. In this groundbreaking history of early New Zealand, Paul Moon details how so many of the events in this decade - the introduction of aggressive capitalism, the arrival of literacy and the beginnings of Maori print culture, intertribal warfare, Hongi Hika and the British connection, colonisation as a simultaneously destructive and beneficial force - influenced the nation's evolution over the remainder of the century. Moon leaves no stone unturned in his examination of this dynamic and fascinating pre-Treaty era. Surprising and engaging, A Savage Country does not merely recount events but takes us inside a changing country, giving a real sense of history as it happened. 'Paul Moon has produced an engrossing account of a singular, violent and confused decade in New Zealand's history.' Paul Little, North & South

'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.