History of specific subjects Books

One of the world's most famous business leaders (and a well-known avian fanatic) explores the pioneers of flight. In Reach for the Skies, Branson examines the history of aviation over the last two hundred years, putting the spotlight on trailblazers such as: * Tony Jannus, who made the first ...

This rich and vivid, highly illustrated social history gives an insight into the world of the New Zealand hunter. Hunting is central to many New Zealanders' lives - whether it's to feed their families, earn a living or to explore the country's amazing wilderness. Hunting: A New Zealand history de...

Winner of the 2011 New Zealand Post "Book of the Year" Award "Come up to Paekakariki in the land of the tiki where you spend all your days at the beach." It's another Saturday night in 1950s Auckland. Downtown, nightclubs are banning the jive because the exuberant couples disturb the cautious fox...

Ponsonby is one of New Zealand's most famous suburbs, the place where social and political change has fermented and fomented since its origins over 160 years ago. From Michael Joseph Savage to Che Fu, from the Hero Parade to the Polynesian Panthers, the fashion industry to cafe society, Ponsonby has...

This book answers the most obvious, the most important, yet the most difficult question about human history: why history unfolded so differently on different continents. Geography and biography, not race, moulded the contrasting fates of Europeans, Asians, Native Americans, sub-Saharan Africans, and...

The census tells us that 8000 New Zealanders actively identify as Jewish and it is estimated that the broader population is probably around 25,000. There has never been an authoritative history of this country's Jewish population and yet people of Jewish descent (both secular and religious) have pla...

No sporting event has had its past and present, its highs and lows so intricately entwined with those of a country like the Tour has with France. The Tour de France is the biggest annual sporting event in the world, and at the same time it transcends sport. The Tour de France comes to the people. I...

Shear Hard Work tells the story of shearers and brings to life the world of the shearing shed for the first time. From the 1860s, when shearers were first identified as the 'very dregs of the colonial democracy', to the present day, when Kiwi shearers set world records and shear sheep around the glo...

Decline can be avoided. Decline can be detected. Decline can be reversed. Amidst the desolate landscape of fallen great companies, Jim Collins began to wonder: How "do" the mighty fall? Can decline be detected early and avoided? How far can a company fall before the path toward doom bec...

Generation after generation of New Zealanders have been fascinated by Auckland's West. Dynamic and distinctive, it's a unique region, ranging from a dramatic and rugged coastline to bush-clad ranges to fertile hill slopes nurturing orchards and vineyards. Its people have always been industrious, fro...

Pie carts are a much-loved kiwi institution. In the 1950s and 1960s, in the days of the six o'clock swill and long before the advent of sophisticated cafe culture, where else could you be assured of a hot feed and a warm welcome, in any sizable New Zealand town? Colourful characters gathered aro...

This is a beautiful commemorative book of the most significant heritage buildings/precincts or landmarks of Christchurch that have been lost or badly damaged in the earthquakes. It is a true celebration of Christchurch, the way it used to be, and covers the history of each building/area, its archite...

The technical side of what happened on Mt Erebus on that fateful November day back in 1979 has been brilliantly explained by Justice Mahon, the Royal Commissioner appointed to investigate the crash of the Air New Zealand DC-10. His magnificent investigation and conclusions were rubbished by a Prime ...

The Press in Christchurch celebrates its 150th anniversary in May 2011, with an accompanying exhibition at the Canterbury Museum which will run for four months. This book is a fond look back at how the popular newspaper started life, how it developed over the years, and how it dealt with the major ...

All that cooking, cleaning, darning, sewing, looking after sick children, looking good for your hubby when he came drifting in after a day at the office...it's always been a tough life as a housewife. This affectionate romp through women's toil and trouble over the past 120 years puts housework u...

For much of the twentieth century New Zealand Truth was this country's most popular newspaper, and by the mid-1950s claimed a readership of half a million people. Not surprisingly Truth gained a position of considerable influence within New Zealand. This highly readable history tells the story of ho...

Canterbury Voices is a unique compilation of first-hand stories and photographs of New Zealand history based on more than 70 years of recordings from the Radio New Zealand Sound Archives. From the hundreds of hours of Canterbury material held, Jim Sulllivan has chosen 40 stories which reflect divers...

This lively survey tells the story of a major New Zealand city, the capital of Canterbury province and the South Island's largest metropolitan centre. Why was the city established in the middle of a swamp? What was it like to live in Christchurch in the 1850s, the 1870s or the 1940s? What has change...

Long before DVDs, long before plasma screen TVs and home theatres, New Zealanders went out to escape and be entertained. In an often stuffily suburban little country at the bottom of the world, the local picture theatres were their places of dreams, where they went to see Garbo and Gable, Monroe and...

New from the best selling author of WHYKICKAMOOCOW and RETURN TO WHYKICKAMOOCOW. Were Ches and Dale real people? Is a Swanndri named after a waterproof water bird? Why not Lemon & Thames? Does Speights really stand for Superb P*** Enjoyed In Great Hotels Throughout Southland? And what's so o...

The West Coast of the South Island holds a special place in the mythology of New Zealand culture. It is the last frontier, the 'wild west' of New Zealand - and the coasters are larger-than-life characters. The authors have both spent significant parts of their working lives on the Coast and know the...

This book was first published in 1946 as Myths and Legends of Maoriland, and subsequently reprinted four times before the second edition was published in 1958, followed by the third edition in 1961. It went on to become one of New Zealand's most recognised books of the genre, winning an Esther Glen...

Jennifer Worth came from a sheltered background when she became a midwife in the Docklands in the 1950s. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grimly impoverished surroundings, but also because of what they were expected to e...

For over 155 years the America's Cup has been the world's most prestigious race for ocean-going yachts. This superb book tells the story of the Cup from the very beginning. It presents a unique collection of beautiful paintings depicting dramatic scenes from every match since 1851. Enlarged details ...

An unusual summons from an old, itinerant acquaintance - known as the Lark - piques author Neville Peat's curiosity. The invitation to meet in the mountains around Glenorchy is timely: he's keen to head into the high country to investigate recent reports of sightings of the near-extinct kokako. The ...

Jennifer Worth came from a sheltered background when she became a midwife in the Docklands in the 1950s. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grimly impoverished surroundings, but also because of what they were expected to e...

An innovative, interdisciplinary study of why leprosy, a disease with a very low level of infection, has repeatedly provoked revulsion and fear. Rod Edmond explores, in particular, how these reactions were refashioned in the modern colonial period. Beginning as a medical history, the book broadens i...

All-powerful, brilliant, decisive, ruthlessly effective ...this is the image of the CIA as portrayed in countless films and novels. It is wrong. This shocking book, based on thousands of declassified documents and interviews with agents at all levels, shows the reality behind the glamorous myth: a b...

Downton Abbey has captured the imagination of the nation. Written by Oscar-winning writer Julian Fellowes the show has become the benchmark for quality drama, and a commentary on all things British. Downton Abbey portrays a world of elegance and decadence, a world of duty and obedience and a worl...

James May's Toy Stories is much more than just a TV tie-in. Inspired by James's exploits, the book covers both the stories behind a number of classic toys and the adventures in summer 2009 as James and his helpers, children and adults of all ages, build and recreate a range of toys in a series of To...

In this follow up to CALL THE MIDWIFE, Jennifer Worth, a midwife working in the docklands area of East London in the 1950s tells more stories about the people she encountered. There's Jane, who cleaned and generally helped out at Nonnatus House - she was taken to the workhouse as a baby and was alle...

On 8 March 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. The ships, some nearly five hundred feet long, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di's loyal eunuch admirals. Their mission was 'to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians be...

This book uncovers for the first time in detail one of the greatest horrors of the twentieth century: the vast system of Soviet camps that were responsible for the deaths of countless millions. Gulag is the only major history in any language to draw together the mass of memoirs and writings on the S...

Nga Iwi o Tainui is a classic work of New Zealand and Maori history, first published in 1995. A bilingual collection, in 67 chapters, of the histories, genealogies, songs and chants of the Tainui people, it represents the culmination of a life's work by the scholar and historian Dr Pei Te Hurinui Jo...

In his bestselling book 1421:The Year China Discovered the World, Gavin Menzies revealed that it was the Chinese that discovered America, not Columbus. Now he presents further astonishing evidence that it was also Chinese advances in science, art, and technology that formed the basis of the European...

What Britain refined, America defined. Assembled by two key figures at the heart of the movement and told through the voices o musicians, artists, iconoclastic reporters and entrepreneurial groupies, PLEASE KILL ME is the full decadent story of the American punk scene, through the early years of And...

The Duncans have been farming Otiwhiti in the Turakina River valley since the 1880s, when they purchased the land from the local iwi. The backstory of this station is rich and fascinating. The remarkable, generous family that has farmed this unforgiving Rangitikei hill country has also directed the ...

The author spent the first week of February 2011 - two weeks before the earth moved - shooting a photographic essay of Christchurch and the suburbs to complement photographs he had taken in the early 1950s. His colour photographs taken in February suddenly became yesterday's pictures. The photograph...

If huts could talk they could tell the whole history of the back country. Of Scottish shepherds who arrived in the high country with the fresh, vivid memories of the Highland Clearances. Of the flush and fury of goldminers and water-racemen in Central Otago. Of the patient and poorly paid jobs of bo...