Replenishing the Earth: the settler revolution and the rise of the Anglo-world, 1783–1939. By James Belich.

Abstract

policy making; and concludes that New Zealand did follow a distinctive (if not exceptional) path, a conclusion at odds with one of the book’s avowed intentions. It is at least debatable whether New Zealand’s historians have been as preoccupied as claimed with pursuing the elusive matter of ‘national identity’. A glance at the voluminous material produced for the Waitangi Tribunal, most of it based on a close and critical engagement with the archival and oral record, scarcely suggests any such preoccupation. And it certainly does not support the claim that historians have been prone to view the country’s history as unique, distinct or exceptional. Further, any reading of resource and conservation history and migration serves to demonstrate that New Zealand’s historians are well versed in similar areas of inquiry in other ‘regions of recent settlement’. The claim that the collection incorporates much of the research conducted since 1992 scarcely bears scrutiny. The many well-researched reports prepared as part of the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process have been practically ignored, a pity given the focused and determined effort which they represent to identify and unravel the processes of colonisation, disempowerment, and immiseration. Richard Boast’s excellent distillation of land loss on the part of Maori (Buying the Land, Selling the Land: governments and Maori land in the North Island, 1865–1921, 2008) rates no mention anywhere in the book. Further, those same studies express what is singularly lacking in this collection, namely, a sense of the regional and local. Also largely overlooked is the huge volume of family, local and regional history which has appeared in the last twenty years, much of it of great value. Has The New Oxford History of New Zealand succeeded in complicating our understanding of New Zealand’s past? Possibly, but partly on account of the conceptual wooliness apparent in some of the essays, and the use of social science jargon and assorted turgidities. Turning nouns into verbs and offering vague generalisations do not facilitate understanding, and if historical writing is not intended to inform a general readership, then, it may be asked, what is it for? Is the adjective ‘new’ justified? Not fully. Many of the themes explored are familiar, many of the interpretations offered have been offered before, and many of the conclusions reached are readily recognisable. Has the collection ‘destabilised’ the whole idea of a general history of New Zealand? It is to be hoped not, for a thorough new general history is something which in the post-Belich and the (almost) post-Treaty settlement era is greatly needed.