Episodes
Thursday Mar 19, 2015
Aroha Harris: New Perspectives on Māori History
Thursday Mar 19, 2015
Thursday Mar 19, 2015
Lecturer in History at the University of Auckland, Aroha Harris (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) talks about new perspectives on Māori history. Her latest book 'Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History' is a collaboration between Harris, Judith Binney and Atholl Anderson and is published by Bridget Williams Books.
Recorded at Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 4 March 2015. Introduction by Ripeka Evans.
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Coal- the Rise and Fall of King Coal in New Zealand
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Recorded on 5 November 2014. Historian Matthew Wright discusses his recent publication on the chequered history of coal.
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Kate Hunter and Kirstie Ross: Holding On To Home
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Kate Hunter and Kirstie Ross discuss their recent publication Holding On To Home: New Zealand Stories and Objects of the First World War.
Recorded at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 1 October 2014.
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Judgments of all Kinds: Economic Policymaking in New Zealand 1945-84
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Monday Nov 10, 2014
In this recording from 2 July 2014 Jim McAloon, Associate Professor of History, Victoria University, sheds light on the perceptions, ideas, and competing interests which shaped the views and actions of ministers and officials in managing a small externally dependent economy in the decades following the Second World War.
Monday Nov 10, 2014
'Captain Kindheart’s Crusade'
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Monday Nov 10, 2014
In this talk recorded on 4 June 2014 Nancy Swarbrick discusses pet culture in New Zealand in the context of the international movement that began in the nineteenth century and still resonates today .
Wednesday Apr 09, 2014
A Tasman tale?: New Zealand's Depression and Australia, 1930-39
Wednesday Apr 09, 2014
Wednesday Apr 09, 2014
Seminar presented by Malcolm McKinnon at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 2 April 2014.
In this talk Malcolm McKinnon discusses ways in which a trans-Tasman frame of reference expands our understanding of the economic depression in 1930s New Zealand. Investors moved their money, workers their labour, politicians their laws and economists their advice back and forth across the Tasman.
Malcolm McKinnon is a Wellington historian who is working on a study of the 1930s depression in New Zealand. He is a former writer and theme editor for Te Ara, was the editor of the New Zealand historical atlas (1997) and has published books on New Zealand foreign relations, immigration history and economic history.
Friday Mar 07, 2014
The History of Gangs in New Zealand
Friday Mar 07, 2014
Friday Mar 07, 2014
Seminar presented by Dr Jarrod Gilbert at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 5 March 2014.
Rape, murder, violence and drugs: gangs are synonymous with them all. Despite having a significant presence in New Zealand since the 1950s, though, our gangs have been under-researched and remain poorly understood. One reason for this is the difficulty of doing fieldwork.
This seminar looks at the problems of researching gangs, but also the problems encountered when research findings clash with popular and official understandings.
Between 2002 and 2010 Jarrod Gilbert undertook the most comprehensive study ever done on gangs in New Zealand, and in 2013 he published Patched: The History of Gangs in New Zealand. Patched won the Peoples Choice category at the 2013 New Zealand Post Book Awards and was a finalist for best non-fiction book.
Jarrod lectures at the University of Canterbury and is the lead researcher at Independent Research Solutions. He is currently working on a book titled Murder: A New Zealand History.
Monday Nov 18, 2013
The White Ships: New Zealand's First World War Hospital Ships
Monday Nov 18, 2013
Monday Nov 18, 2013
Seminar presented by historian Gavin McLean at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 6 November 2013.
In 1915 the New Zealand government converted the liners Maheno and Marama into state-of-the art floating hospitals. Fitted out partly with funds raised by high profile public appeals, the ships had a busy war, eventually carrying 47,000 people. Painted distinctively in accordance with international requirements, they were the public face of our merchant marine's war, with the Maheno's crew making a direct civilian contribution to the Gallipoli campaign. Not everything went according to plan. There were tensions between the governor and ministers and shipboard disputes between army officers and mariners and between doctors and nurses. The political left also muttered about profiteering by the Union Steam Ship Company. Come along and hear the story of New Zealand's white ships.
Gavin McLean is a senior historian in the History Group of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. He is about to start on writing a book on New Zealand's First World War at sea.
Wednesday Oct 02, 2013
The Great Strike of 1913: ‘Industrial War’ in ‘the Workers’ Paradise’
Wednesday Oct 02, 2013
Wednesday Oct 02, 2013
Seminar presented by historian Peter Clayworth at the
Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 2 October 2013.
The Great Strike of 1913 was one of the largest and most disruptive in New Zealand’s history. From October 1913 to January 1914 a strike wave swept across the country, involving about 14,000 workers, hundreds of police and thousands of special constables.
In this talk Peter Clayworth gives an overview of the strike, with a closer look at events in Wellington. He examines some of the questions the events of 1913 raise concerning the nature of New Zealand society on the eve of the Great War. Peter also briefly discusses events being organised to commemorate the strike centennial.
Peter works as a writer for Te Ara the encyclopedia of New Zealand. He has a PhD in history from the University of Otago. He is a committee member of the Labour History Project and is currently involved in organising a series of commemorative events for the centennial of the 1913 strike. He is also working on a biography of Red Fed leader Pat Hickey. Peter hails from a family of mechanics in Stoke, Nelson, and is descended from a long line of West Coasters.
Friday Sep 06, 2013
Tramping in New Zealand, a History
Friday Sep 06, 2013
Friday Sep 06, 2013
Seminar presented by historians Chris Maclean and Shaun Barnett at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 4 September 2013. Introduced by Jock Phillips
New Zealand offers some of finest tramping anywhere with some of the most striking scenery on the planet, arguably the best hut and track network in the world, a small population, no dangerous wild animals, poisonous snakes or toxic spiders, good access, 14 national parks, 19 forest parks, 10 conservation parks, and no entry fees. Around these attributes a uniquely New Zealand culture of tramping has developed, reflecting broader national characteristics. In this presentation we will talk about the history of tramping in New Zealand, and also about the process of researching and writing a book on the subject.
Shaun Barnett began tramping as a teenager in Hawke's Bay during the 1980s and has since tramped extensively around New Zealand and also overseas. In 1996, he became a full-time outdoors writer and photographer. He edited Wilderness magazine for three years, has authored several tramping guidebooks, and served on the Federated Mountain Clubs executive for nearly 10 years. Shaun's most recent book, Shelter from the Storm, The Story of New Zealand's Backcountry Huts, co-authored with Rob Brown and Geoff Spearpoint, is a finalist at this year's NZ Post Book Awards.
Chris Maclean graduated from Victoria University with a B.A. in History, and has since made a career out of writing historical books. His book Tararua, highlighted the history of a previously underrated mountain range, while his subsequent book Kapiti won a Montana Book Award in 2000. A keen tramper and sea kayaker, Chris has wide experience of the New Zealand outdoors, and his most recent book Stag Spooner, Wild Man from the Bush, is also a finalist at this year's NZ Post Book Awards.
Friday Aug 23, 2013
The Red Cross Lens on New Zealand Social History
Friday Aug 23, 2013
Friday Aug 23, 2013
Seminar presented by historian Margaret Tennant at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 3 July 2013.
While writing an institutional history requires attention to the framework of the organisation itself, its membership, leadership and changes over time, it invariably provides a lens into broader historical themes and how they are played out within particular local and national frameworks. In the case of the New Zealand Red Cross, we have the example of a transnational organisation which, in New Zealand, emerged within an imperial framework, but operated in minutely local contexts - it links with the history of high diplomacy and nation states, but equally embraces the iconographic wartime sock knitter, the home nursing class, neighbourly social caring and school-room pen pals.
The wide range of activities undertaken by the Red Cross during its history sheds light on such areas as disaster relief, children's voluntarism, the militarisation of charity, the business of fundraising, the policing of professional boundaries and the relationship between government and non-profit formations. Margaret's presentation will explore some of these themes while commenting on the tension between the requirements of a conventional, largely chronological institutional history and the desire to 'dig deeper' in pursuit of wider historical questions.
Margaret Tennant was formerly Professor of History at Massey University, and is currently working as a contract historian. Margaret is the author of The Fabric of Welfare. Voluntary Organisations, Government and Welfare in New Zealand 1840-2005, Children's Health, the Nation's Wealth, and numerous articles on women's history and the history of health and welfare in New Zealand, the most recent being 'Fun and Fundraising: the Selling of Charity in New Zealand's Past' (Social History, 2013).
Wednesday Jul 10, 2013
Writing fiction as a non-fiction writer
Wednesday Jul 10, 2013
Wednesday Jul 10, 2013
Seminar presented at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 3 July 2013
Coast is a novel from David Young after some decades as a writer of non-fiction, particularly in the field of history and environment.
Exploring the effects of two world wars on three generations of men from the same family, Coast is also a meditation on the power of landscape. The east coast of Kincardineshire, Scotland and the North Island’s Rangitikei coastline where a Scots community endures even today, anchor this story in psychological, as well as physical, reality. Told from the standpoints of the three related key characters, the narrative unfolds a male social history spanning much of the twentieth century. It embraces issues of identity, belonging and connection to place. Kin and romantic love, matters of class, the Depression, active service abroad – first on the Western Front, then through the air war in the Pacific – and of family life, reach out beyond Pakeha concerns to the circularity of history and the tangata whenua.
The question of how much the writer brings to his fiction from his previous historical endeavours and from his own life is explored in this talk. The author’s history of conservation in New Zealand, Our Islands Our Selves, his Whanganui River book, Woven by Water, and even his first book, Faces of the River, played a part in the genesis of this work. So too did oral and documentary historical research.
Thursday Jun 06, 2013
Friendly Fire: What happens when allies quarrel
Thursday Jun 06, 2013
Thursday Jun 06, 2013
Seminar delivered by Gerald Hensley at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 5 June 2013. In 1984 the anti-nuclear policy of the newly elected Labour Government collided with the United States policy of nuclear deterrence. It led to the rebuff of a US naval visit and after two years in which tempers rose and diplomacy struggled with David Lange's free-wheeling press conferences, the standoff ended in New Zealand's suspension from the ANZUS alliance. In his talk Gerald Hensley, who was one of the participants, draws on interviews and classified files in New Zealand, the US, Australia and the United Kingdom to look at how this came about and how the clash of powerful personalities shifted the foundations of New Zealand's foreign policy. Gerald Hensley was trained as an historian. He served as a diplomat for twenty years before becoming Head of the Prime Minister's Department under both Sir Robert Muldoon and David Lange, and subsequently Secretary of Defence.
Thursday Nov 01, 2012
The Present and the Future
Thursday Nov 01, 2012
Thursday Nov 01, 2012
Part of the Public Service Act centenary series, this talk by Prof. Peter Hughes, School of Government was presented on 30 October 2012. The talk is introduced by Lewis Holden, CEO of Manatū Tanoga - the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
Monday Oct 29, 2012
The Eighties – A Retrospective View
Monday Oct 29, 2012
Monday Oct 29, 2012
Part of the Public Service Act centenary series, this talk by Prof. Jonathon Boston, Institute of Governance and Policy Studies was presented on 23 October 2012.
Tuesday Oct 23, 2012
The “Old” Public Service
Tuesday Oct 23, 2012
Tuesday Oct 23, 2012
Talk by John R. Martin, IPANZ Fellow, presented on 16 October 2012.
Wednesday Oct 17, 2012
Charles Mackay: The fall and rise of New Zealand's first 'homosexual'
Wednesday Oct 17, 2012
Wednesday Oct 17, 2012
In 1929 Charles Mackay, a former mayor of Wanganui bled to death on a Berlin street corner – a victim of violent clashes between police and Communist protesters. How did he get there? An earlier incident triggered Mackay’s tragic trajectory: in 1920 he shot the returned soldier-cum-writer Walter D’Arcy Cresswell, who was blackmailing the (secretly homosexual) mayor. Paul Diamond’s research into the events surrounding both shootings has uncovered new information about this hidden aspect of New Zealand history. Seminar presented by Paul Diamond, 7 September 2011.
Wednesday Oct 17, 2012
Life on the Battlefields 94 years later
Wednesday Oct 17, 2012
Wednesday Oct 17, 2012
Belgian historian Charlotte Descamps, who has lived her whole life in the First World War battlefields of the Ypres Salient, talks about her experiences at Varlet Farm, how evidence of the conflict is unearthed every year, how modern technology is helping to identify human remains almost a century after the war, the ‘iron harvest’ in the Salient (over 200 tons of live ammunition is still collected very year) and the work of the bomb disposal squad, how other items like helmets, rifles, rum jars, badges, buckles and silent pickets help tell the history of the area, and the ongoing research efforts to locate tunnels, ammunition dumps and dugouts. This seminar was presented on 1 August 2012. You can also download the associated slides for this talk (4mb, pdf)
Tuesday Oct 16, 2012
Scandal sheet confidential: voyages around NZ Truth (1977-2008)
Tuesday Oct 16, 2012
Tuesday Oct 16, 2012
Redmer Yska recalls his involvement with 'NZ Truth' newspaper over three decades: first, as a journalist, second as a historical researcher, and lastly as its biographer, resulting in the 2010 book NZ Truth: the Rise and Fall of the People's Paper. This seminar was presented on 5 October 2011.
Monday Oct 15, 2012
The search for Anne Perry
Monday Oct 15, 2012
Monday Oct 15, 2012
Dr Joanne Drayton discusses her biography of crime writer Anne Perry, better known in New Zealand as the convicted muderer Juliet Hulme. On 22 June 1954, Juliet Hulme and her friend Pauline Parker, set out for an afternoon in Victoria Park, Christchurch with Pauline’s mother, Honora Parker. For Honora, the walk ended with her murder. Juliet and Pauline were subsequently tried in a sensational court case that was widely covered by the press in New Zealand and overseas. Having been found guilty, Juliet spent five and a half years in prison. On her release she changed her name, left New Zealand and disappeared from view. Then Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (1994) changed everything. With interest in the murder reignited, journalists managed to track down Juliet Hulme, who was now living under the name of Anne Perry – and leading a successful life as a bestselling crime fiction writer (she’s sold more than 25 million copies of her books). While Anne’s identity has been revealed to the world for some years now, she has never spoken to a biographer about her life in-depth. However, in a ground-breaking move, the famously private Perry agreed to be interviewed by Joanne Drayton, allowing her unparalleled access to her friends, relatives, colleagues and archives. This unique access has resulted in the first comprehensive biography of Anne Perry, bringing together the two somewhat incompatible lives of Juliet Hulme the murderer, and Anne Perry the bestselling author in a literary biography with a twist. This seminar was presented on 5 September 2012.