Stories of Old New Zealand

$15.00

Happy is the country that has no history, it was anciently said—as if all history were a tale of unhappiness, which it is not. But what is that country? Certainly not New Zealand. Its history goes far back to the wanderings of Polynesian peoples and a Polynesian way of life, modified by these islands of bush and mountains and many waters to which they came.
It tells of discovery by European sailors and settlement by European adventurers and farmers and traders, of how they affected the land and the land affected them, of how they built homes and cities and communications, dug gardens and mines and harnessed rivers; of how they sent their produce overseas and went overseas themselves for learning or to do battle.
It is the story of a clash of cultures; of the development of free political institutions in a new country thousands of miles away from their place of origin; of the development of a people who thought of themselves naturally as New Zealanders. It is the story of a hundred incidental things, romantic, inspiring or sober; a story of solid hard work, of an occasional lucky chance, a story sometimes of anguish. It gives us some extraordinary characters, some men and women who may be called great, as well as the thousands of ordinary people who, without knowing it, helped to form a tradition for us.
Book in OK condition. Pages read very well.

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Happy is the country that has no history, it was anciently said—as if all history were a tale of unhappiness, which it is not. But what is that country? Certainly not New Zealand. Its history goes far back to the wanderings of Polynesian peoples and a Polynesian way of life, modified by these islands of bush and mountains and many waters to which they came.
It tells of discovery by European sailors and settlement by European adventurers and farmers and traders, of how they affected the land and the land affected them, of how they built homes and cities and communications, dug gardens and mines and harnessed rivers; of how they sent their produce overseas and went overseas themselves for learning or to do battle.
It is the story of a clash of cultures; of the development of free political institutions in a new country thousands of miles away from their place of origin; of the development of a people who thought of themselves naturally as New Zealanders. It is the story of a hundred incidental things, romantic, inspiring or sober; a story of solid hard work, of an occasional lucky chance, a story sometimes of anguish. It gives us some extraordinary characters, some men and women who may be called great, as well as the thousands of ordinary people who, without knowing it, helped to form a tradition for us.
Book in OK condition. Pages read very well.

Happy is the country that has no history, it was anciently said—as if all history were a tale of unhappiness, which it is not. But what is that country? Certainly not New Zealand. Its history goes far back to the wanderings of Polynesian peoples and a Polynesian way of life, modified by these islands of bush and mountains and many waters to which they came.
It tells of discovery by European sailors and settlement by European adventurers and farmers and traders, of how they affected the land and the land affected them, of how they built homes and cities and communications, dug gardens and mines and harnessed rivers; of how they sent their produce overseas and went overseas themselves for learning or to do battle.
It is the story of a clash of cultures; of the development of free political institutions in a new country thousands of miles away from their place of origin; of the development of a people who thought of themselves naturally as New Zealanders. It is the story of a hundred incidental things, romantic, inspiring or sober; a story of solid hard work, of an occasional lucky chance, a story sometimes of anguish. It gives us some extraordinary characters, some men and women who may be called great, as well as the thousands of ordinary people who, without knowing it, helped to form a tradition for us.
Book in OK condition. Pages read very well.