NZ Post Book Awards
Although my book was not a winner on the night, I thought I should share a couple of images from the NZ Post Book Awards held this week. The judges noted that 62 books were entered in the general non-fiction category - more than any other - so it was very gratifying for The Meeting Place: Maori and Pakeha Encounters, 1642-1840 to be recognised in the top four. The judges commented in their general remarks that this was a 'fine and illuminating example' of history writing. In their detailed comments on my book they stated that: The hopeless miscomprehension and miscommunication of initial encounters between Māori and Pākehā at times bordered on the darkest of tragi‐comedies, but it was inevitable – although not inevitably well recorded in our history books – that as time went on comprehension, communication and eventually mutual accommodation would come to pass. It was not simply a case of Maori bending to the will of Europeans, but of both finding what Vincent O’Malley calls
