A focus of this issue is Otago and Southland Province’s 150th anniversary and the ways it has been commemorated. Leah Taylor provides an overview of the celebrations over anniversary weekend in and around Dunedin. One of the biggest projects was the publication of Southern People: A Dictionary of Otago Southland Biography, commissioned by Dunedin City Council. Its editor, Jane Thomson, talks about the process of bringing the book together.
Another theme of the issue is the work being done in the Treaty of Waitangi claims area. Giselle Burns reflects on ‘Public History and Treaty Claims Research’, discussing how her prior work as a Waitangi Tribunal Research Officer is shaping what she teaches as a Victoria University of Wellington lecturer in New Zealand history. An overview of the Waitangi Tribunal’s work is provided by Tony Nightingale, and there is a profile of Auckland historian Paul Monin, who specialises in 19th-century Hauraki race relations.
David Green reviews the television series, The New Zealand Wars/Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa, written and presented by James Belich, which screened recently.
Read this issue: Phanzine July 1998