Notes on the life of my brother: Andrew Robb, 1955-2022
When we were very young, my mother was in the habit of dressing my brother and me in identical clothes, which often led people to ask us if we were […]
Category Archives: New Zealand history
Police, professions and the Kaikohe ‘tooth fairy’ – a stark illustration of the decay of dental care
In April last year, police and Ministry of Health officials raided the home and workshop of Claire Wihongi-Matene, and charged her with claiming to be a health practitioner and six […]
Toppling statues, censorship, and erasing history
The first brass head has toppled in New Zealand. On 12 June the Hamilton City Council removed a statue of… Hamilton! British naval Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton, veteran of […]
Ghost houses and the spectre of communism
In late January, the Labour Party mayor of Auckland, Phil Goff, made a bizarre, shocking proposal: Given that there is a housing crisis in the city, with thousands of people […]
Scientific medicine, the weight of history, and the measles epidemics in Samoa and New Zealand
It appears that the measles epidemic in Samoa is finally waning. It is now a week since the government of Samoa implemented emergency measures to combat the disease, centred on […]
Was New Zealand’s participation in the Second World War avoidable?
A Review of Phoney Wars: New Zealand Society in the Second World War, by Stevan Eldred-Grigg, with Hugh Eldred-Grigg. A guest post by Terry Coggan. World War Two is seen […]
The profound political implications of Ihumātao
The most important shift in New Zealand politics in almost three decades was registered last month, when a long-simmering Māori land occupation at Ihumātao erupted into a mass struggle. In […]
Cotton, slaves, war, and measles in colonial Fiji
Second of two articles on Land Labour and Epidemic Disease in the capitalist penetration of the Pacific First part here. Almost one hundred years after the Sydney Cove epidemic, a […]
Land, labour, and epidemic diseases – two articles on capitalist penetration of the Pacific
When the deadly epidemic of influenza swept the world in the months following the end of the Great War of 1914-18, the toll it took in the Pacific Islands was […]
Cruise of the Mokoia – Harry Holland and anti-colonial struggles in Fiji and Samoa
(Second of two articles on indentured labourers and the early anti-colonial struggles in the Pacific. First part here) Very soon after the publication of Holland’s pamphlet on indentured labour in […]
A worker at large 