The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict

First published in 1986, James Belich’s groundbreaking book and the television series based upon it transformed New Zealanders’ understanding of New Zealand’s great “civil war”: struggles between Maori and Pakeha in the 19th century. Revealing the enormous tactical and military skill of Maori, and the inability of the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict to acknowledge those qualities, Belich’s account of the New Zealand Wars offered a very different picture from the one previously given in historical works. This bestselling classic of New Zealand history and Belich’s larger argument about the impact of historical interpretation resonates today.