Bridget Williams Books: 132 books

House prices may boom or bust but the long-term trend is clear: for more New Zealanders than ever, home ownership is out of reach. Incomes simply have not kept pace with skyrocketing property prices. ‘Generation Rent’ calls into question priorities at the heart of New Zealand’s identity.In this...

They seemed like a nice enough French couple, touring New Zealand in a campervan in 1985. But Auckland police suspected they were in fact experienced French agents Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, part of a dozen-strong team behind the bombing of the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior. This fascinating...

In this charming book, Pauline O’Regan, the author of A Changing Order, turns her characteristic warmth and wit onto the world of her childhood.Accounts of climbing windmills and other adventures growing up in a West Coast farming community are interspersed with meditations on the religious faith that...

In an era of populist politics, Brexit, Donald Trump, 24-hour news cycles and perpetual election campaigning, how do we govern well for the future? How do we take the long view, ensuring that present-day policy decisions reflect the needs and safeguard the interests of future generations?In...

New Zealand is recognised as having been a pioneer in creating in 1938 what was arguably the Western world’s first comprehensive welfare state … we argue in this book that more than seventy-five years later there is a new opportunity for New Zealand to pioneer a further transformation in how a...

Can a sugar tax improve public health? Even if it can, is it the right thing to do? One of New Zealand’s foremost health scientists, Mike Berridge, teams up with tax expert Lisa Marriott to explore the issue.This BWB Text explains the relationship between sugar and ill-health, and explores...

The divide between New Zealand’s poorest and wealthiest inhabitants has widened alarmingly over recent decades. Differences in income have grown faster than in most other developed countries.New Zealand society is being reshaped, stretching to accommodate new distance between those who ‘have’ and...

‘The speed with which the storm is gathering leaves little time for complacency or half-hearted action if we are to retain a democratic future.’Our climate is changing, in ways that will have long-term impacts for us and for our children. Yet still we fail to take meaningful action. Why? And when...

Negotiating a claim before the Waitangi Tribunal can involve troubling challenges to an iwi’s legitimacy, sometimes from unexpected places. In this unique behind-the-scenes account of the negotiation of Ngāi Tahu’s Waitangi Tribunal claim, Sir Tipene O’Regan describes what happened when claims of New Age mysticism attempted to undermine traditional whakapapa and academic scholarship.

I became aware of the fallibility of the real, that the splendidly detailed objective world of sound and colours, shapes and textures was not completely opaque, and that beneath it could be glimpsed the shimmer of things of great horror and ineffable joy.'He is one of New Zealand’s finest regional...

‘Underneath the numbers, a philosophical judgement is always being made based on values, not facts.’ Thirty years ago Marilyn Waring’s groundbreaking book Counting for Nothing was released. Waring explained, through meticulous economic analysis, how the success of the global economy rests...

For novelist Stephanie Johnson, her relationship with Australia and Australians has been an ambivalent one. She has lived there for periods in her life, and her first book, a collection of short stories, was actually published in Australia. She was described then as a young Australian writer, something...

The Waitangi Tribunal sits at the heart of the Treaty settlement process, with a unique remit to investigate claims and recommend settlements. But although the claims process has been hugely controversial, little has been written about the Tribunal itself. These essays, by leading academics, lawyers...

There is a deep dysfunction in the way we talk about oil and mining. Battles over oil and mining developments in New Zealand are fierce and polarised. Often presented as a simple trade-off between conservation or quick profit, the debate leaves little space for discussion across ideological...