Encounters: The Creation of New Zealand
  • Published: 24 July 2013
  • ISBN: 9780143568506
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $44.99
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Encounters: The Creation of New Zealand

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Paul Moon's genre-busting history of New Zealand's ever-changing character - a heady exploration through Maori myths, early settlement, the All Blacks, the Speight's 'Southern Man', art and the New Zealand landscape

'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.
  • Published: 24 July 2013
  • ISBN: 9780143568506
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $44.99
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Paul Moon

Dr Paul Moon is Professor of History at the Faculty of Maori Development, Auckland University of Technology, where he has taught since 1993. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree, a Master of Philosophy degree, a Master of Arts degree, and a Doctor of Philosophy. In 2003, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society at University College, London.

Moon is widely recognised for his study of the Treaty of Waitangi and the early period of Crown rule in New Zealand. Among his many published works, he has produced major biographies of political and Maori figures – including Governors William Hobson and Robert FitzRoy, and the Ngapuhi chief, Hone Heke – a trilogy of books covering New Zealand history from the 1820s to the 1840s, an examination of Maori cannibalism and a general history of New Zealand in the twentieth century.

Also by Paul Moon

The Voyagers: Remarkable European Explorations of New Zealand
Encounters: The Creation of New Zealand
A Savage Country: The untold story of New Zealand in the 1820s
A Savage Country
This Horrid Practice
See all

Praise for Encounters: The Creation of New Zealand

'Moon deftly guides his readers through the many layers of stories and narratives that have accreted around the place we call Aotearoa/New Zealand . . . he gently reveals some of this myth-making to be harmless nationalism, [but also notes] the sometimes delusional nature of these invented histories.'

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—Aaron Smale, Mana

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'[Encounters] captures the big picture, the inherent quality that is 'our' New Zealand: a new land, new opportunities.'

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—Otago Daily Times

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'Encounters comprises a kaleidoscope of essays on a rich diversity of elements that have made us what we are, and is highly recommended.'

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—Sir Bob Jones, New Zealand Herald

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'Consistently engaging and highly readable.'

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—David Eggleton, Landfall

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'Encounters is Paul Moon's most ambitious and best book to date. It is elegant, witty, erudite, illuminating and sometimes provocative. It has been beautifully produced by Penguin with colour reproductions sprinkled throughout the book that augment and enrich the lively text.'

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—Tom Brooking, Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies

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