Talking New Zealand History
Late last year Vaughan Rapatahana conducted an interview with me for Scoop Review of Books. Kia ora Vincent. T ē n ā koe m ō t ā u pukapuka. Ka nui te pai t ē nei mahi. VR: Let’s start at the top. The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800 -2000 is a massive book and a mighty indictment of the ways in which P ā keh ā grabbed the land off and of M ā ori; a systematic snatching that of course has had and continues to have serious ramifications for many M ā ori today. What are the positive flow-on effects stemming from this important book, that you are experiencing yourself? Vincent : The response to the book has been phenomenal right from the day we launched it back in October 2016. That was at the Waahi Pā poukai in Huntly. I handed over the first official copy to Kīngi Tuheitia and wandered around the back of the whare where a big crowd was gathering. I wondered what was happening. It turned out they were already queuing to get their own copies of the b