The Meeting Place - A New Zealand History Blog

It was truly humbling to be named as the recipient of the 2022 Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement for Non-Fiction this week. Prime Minister Rt. Hon Jacinda Ardern commented, ‘Every year I’m delighted to have the opportunity to honour the incredible contribution of three of our most talented writers. Congratulations to Stephanie Johnson, James Norcliffe and Vincent O’Malley. The awards recognise not only their literary achievements, but also the significant impact their work has had on the cultural landscape of Aotearoa.’ Arts Council Chair Caren Rangi said, ‘Warmest congratulations to Stephanie, James and Vincent. Your work across all genres has been vital in helping readers to see themselves, to advance important cultural discussions, and to bring moments of joy, humour and beauty.’ Members of the public will get the chance to enjoy readings and discussions from the winners in an online event next February. More details to come .

Event: Auckland Writers Festival Event: Past and Present Date: Friday 26 August 2022 Summary: Sociologist Joanna Kidman (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Raukawa) and historian Vincent O’Malley make a formidable team, as partners in life and scholarship. They both contributed to the recently published Fragments from a Contested Past: Remembrance, Denial and New Zealand History , and co-lead the Marsden Fund project – He Taonga te Wareware?: Remembering and Forgetting Difficult Histories in Aotearoa New Zealand – a three-year study into how the 19th-century NZ Wars have shaped memory, identity and history.  O’Malley is a founding partner of HistoryWorks and the author of the 2022 Ockham NZ Book Awards General Non-Fiction winner Voices from the New Zealand Wars | He Reo n ō ng ā Pakanga o Aotearoa . Kidman is a Professor of Sociology with a particular interest in youth movements and higher education. They speak with Dale Husband about their writing, passions and collaborations.     PAST &am

Sociologist Joanna Kidman (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Raukawa) and historian Vincent O’Malley make a formidable team, as partners in life and scholarship. They both contributed to the recently published Fragments from a Contested Past: Remembrance, Denial and New Zealand History , and co-lead the Marsden Fund project – He Taonga te Wareware?: Remembering and Forgetting Difficult Histories in Aotearoa New Zealand – a three-year study into how the 19th-century NZ Wars have shaped memory, identity and history.  O’Malley is a founding partner of HistoryWorks and the author of the 2022 Ockham NZ Book Awards General Non-Fiction winner Voices from the New Zealand Wars | He Reo n ō ng ā Pakanga o Aotearoa . Kidman is a Professor of Sociology with a particular interest in youth movements and higher education. They speak with Chris Wikaira about their writing, passions and collaborations.  For more information and to book tickets see here .

History has rarely felt more topical or relevant as, all across the globe, nations have begun to debate who, how and what they choose to remember and forget. From the removal of the statue of Captain Hamilton formerly displayed in the centre of the city that bears his name, to the renaming of sites that recall colonial violence such as Von Tempsky Street and the town of Maxwell north of Whanganui, on the 159th anniversary of the British Army's invasion of the Waikato, Vincent O'Malley discusses how we remember and forget our own history.  Read more in recent BWB Text  Fragments from a Contested Past: Remembrance, Denial and New Zealand History , co-authored by Joanna Kidman, Vincent O'Malley, Liana MacDonald, Tom Roa and Keziah Wallis. Where:  New Zealand Fabian Society 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington (take the lifts behind Unity Books - to the second floor). When: 5.30pm, Tuesday 12 July 2022   Visit the Fabian Society website to register to attend in person or watc

In the inaugural Auckland Museum Institute Humanities Lecture for 2022, Dr O’Malley describes how the Great War for New Zealand, begun from the invasion of Waikato in 1863, played out in Tāmaki Makaurau, and the legacy it left behind. In his acclaimed 2016 book   The Great War for New Zealand , Dr Vincent O’Malley argued that it was in the invasion of Waikato in 1863, and not either world war, that was the defining conflict in New Zealand history. War in the Waikato shaped the nation in many ways and caused incalculable misery and lasting harm for many Māori communities. But as the same book highlighted, it also sealed Auckland’s future. In this lecture, O’Malley describes how the conflict played out in Tāmaki Makaurau and the legacy it left behind. Vincent O’Malley is the author of many books on New Zealand history including bestselling works   The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800–2000   (2016) and   The New Zealand Wars / Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa   (2019), and most rec

The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for 2022 were announced at a ceremony held in Auckland last week and I was thrilled to win the General Non-Fiction category for Voices from the New Zealand Wars/He Reo nō ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa , published in 2021 and the third instalment in a trilogy on the New Zealand Wars that began with The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato, 1800-2000 in 2016 and was followed by The New Zealand Wars/Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa in 2019 - all published by Bridget Williams Books. Judges Nicholas Reid, Aaron Smale and Leilani Tamu had this to say about Voices from the New Zealand Wars : Vincent O’Malley’s book meets all the criteria for a great work of non-fiction. It is the fruit of close historical research and accessible to a wide readership. It tells us of the past but is relevant to the present when public debate feeds New Zealanders’ hunger to know how our country was formed. It is nuanced in its balance of both Māori and Pakeha voices and it respects the

  What a nation or society chooses to remember and forget speaks to its contemporary priorities and sense of identity. Understanding how that process works enables us to better imagine a future with a different, or wider, set of priorities.’   Which histories does a nation prioritise – and which are left quietly aside? These are questions hotly debated in the international press. And in Aotearoa New Zealand, they are brought sharply into focus by the new history curriculum, arriving in schools in 2023.   Fragments from a Contested Past, published this week, reflects on these questions of memory, loss and ‘difficult histories’.  The team of writers ( Joanna Kidman , Vincent O'Malley, Liana MacDonald , Tom Roa and Keziah Wallis ) several from iwi invaded or attacked during the New Zealand Wars, have come together to ‘enable us to better imagine a future with a different, or wider, set of priorities’.    Combinin

My latest book, Voices from the New Zealand Wars/He Reo nō ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa (Bridget Williams Books), is a finalist in the General Non-Fiction Category at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.  The judges had this to say about the book:  An admirable work of historical scholarship drawing on many sources, Māori and Pākehā. Vincent O'Malley's craft lies in unpacking those sources in an eloquent and incisive way, and he helps readers to think critically as he presents balanced arguments about contested battles and other conflicts. In the process, he weaves a coherent history of the New Zealand Wars. Essential reading for New Zealanders, with the bonus of excellent book production by the publishers.  For the full list of finalists see here . The winners will be announced at a ceremony in May.

Aotearoa New Zealand has come a long way in the past few years in its efforts to engage with its history in a more upfront and honest manner. For those of us who have campaigned for such a change, this is not before time. This new-found willingness to move beyond a rose-tinted approach to the nation’s past in which anything uncomfortable or considered to reflect poorly on the Pākehā majority is shunned and ignored has taken considerable effort and is still very much a work in progress. Confronting the often bloody and brutal realities of colonial dispossession of Māori has come as a shock for many non-Māori New Zealanders brought up to believe that they lived in a country with the greatest ‘race relations’ in the world. A more robust and truthful understanding of that history is to a large degree dependent on the education system. And while there is good news on this front, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the campaign has been a long and at times difficult one.