December 11, 2018
Library manuscripts cast light on war ravage
Historian Vincent O’Malley has received a research grant from the Friends of the Turnbull Library to continue work on a book on the New Zealand Wars aimed at secondary school students as well as a general market.
Dr O’Malley’s The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800-2000, was published by Bridget Williams Books in 2016.
He says his latest project will focus on long manuscripts held in the Alexander Turnbull Library that give first hand accounts of the war by Māori and Pākehā who either fought in or witnessed the wars that ravaged New Zealand between 1845 and 1872.
They include stories like Heni Te Kiri Karamu’s narrative of her remarkable exploits as a wahine toa, and Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky’s colourful account of his time in the Forest Rangers.
Another grant has gone to writer and broadcaster Nick Bollinger, who is preparing an illustrated book chronicling the development of the counterculture in New Zealand from 1960 to 1975.
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