On this page you will find pdfs of articles and books that you are free to download and use. See also Podcasts ( mp3 audio downloads).
Venturing out of narrow seas
Seminar by Brian Easton delivered on 6 July 2011 in which he discusses his current project: writing a history of New Zealand from an economics perspective.
- Download 'Venturing out of narrow seas' (pdf, 30kbs)
Featherston Military Training Camp and the First World War, 1915–27
Featherston Camp was New Zealand’s largest training camp during the First World War, where around 60,000 young men trained for military service on European battlefields between 1916 and 1918.
Download Featherston Military Training Camp and the First World War, 1915–27 by historian Tim Shoebridge (2011):
- Featherston camp report – lower resolution (pdf, 7mb)
- Featherston camp report – higher resolution (pdf, 35mb)
Peter Fraser at war
Transcript of public history talk by Gerald Hensley at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 6 April 2011.
This talk outlines how Peter Fraser handled the greatest crisis New Zealand has ever faced and, in doing so, became New Zealand’s greatest Prime Minister. Despite an autocratic nature and an indifference to administrative skills, he managed the home front and early military disasters with notable calm and won the respect of both Churchill and Roosevelt for his ability to work with our wartime allies. Through the day-to-day emergencies he never lost sight of the ultimate aim of the war and made a notable contribution to the post-war world and the establishment of the United Nations.
- Download Peter Fraser at War (1.3mbs, pdf)
Gerald Hensley is the author of Beyond the Battlefield: New Zealand and its Allies 1939–45 (2009)
Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (1940)
The first Dictionary of New Zealand biography, edited by Parliamentary Librarian G.H. Scholefield, was published in two volumes in 1940. Although not as reliable or inclusive as the second DNZB (1990-2000), it does contain many entries on people not covered in the later volumes. The pdfs have been processed using optical character recognition (OCR) so they are searchable within your pdf reader.
- Volume One-intro and A-L (pdf, 8.5 mbs)
- Volume Two-M-Z (pdf, 9.5 mbs)
Treaty of Waitangi booklets
A series of booklets about the Treaty were published by the State Services Commission in 2005. Unfortunately these are now out of print and are no longer available. Below are links to pdfs of the booklets, which you are free to use:
- All about the Treaty (pdf, 1.1mb)
- Journey of the Treaty (pdf, 700k)
- The Story of the Treaty Part 1 (pdf, 1.1mb)
- The Story of the Treaty Part 2 (pdf, 870k)
- Treaty timeline (pdf, 820k)
Immigration study findings
This manuscript represents a fuller version of the findings which are published in Jock Phillips & Terry Hearn's book, Settlers: Immigrants to New Zealand from England, Scotland and Ireland, 1800-1945 (Auckland University Press). The manuscript was originally prepared by Terry Hearn and then revised by Jock Phillips. It differs from Settlers in that it presents the history of British and Irish immigration to New Zealand chronologically, and it includes many more detailed findings on particular immigration flows and groups of settlers. These are to be found primarily in the tables and graphs, and there is also much fuller commentary than in the published book.
There are six chapters:
- Chapter 1: The first British arrivals, 1769-1839 (pdf, 130k)
- Chapter 2: Immigration during the Crown Colony period, 1840-1852 (pdf, 530k)
- Chapter 3: The Provincial and Gold-rush years, 1853-70 (pdf, 745k)
- Chapter 4: Boom, depression, and immigration, 1871-1890 (pdf, 557k)
- Chapter 5: Economic growth and renewed immigration, 1891-1915 (pdf, 410k)
- Chapter 6: The interwar immigrants, 1916-1945 (pdf, 410k)
Battle of the River Plate
In 2009 we published a web feature on the Battle of the River Plate. Below are links to an accompanying booklet, provided in English and Spanish
- Battle of the River Plate – the New Zealand story (pdf, 1.2 mbs)
- La batalla del Río de la Plata – la historia neocelandesa (pdf, 1.2 mbs)
Ngā Tangata Taumata Rau 1869-1960 e-book
This e-book, Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau, 1869-1960, was published by Manatū Taonga, Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 4 July 2011 to celebrate Māori language week. This book contains the Māori language biographies from all published volumes of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography to date.
File downloads:
- Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau, 1869-1960 (for e-readers)
NTTR.epub (1.49 MB)
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Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau, 1869-1960 - epub version - Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau, 1869-1960 (for Kindle users)
NTTR.mobi (2.48 MB)
Returned mime type = application/octet-stream
Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau, 1869-1960 - mobi version - Read more about this e-book here
