'Where once I saw a view as I drove around the Taranaki coast along State Highway 45, I now see confiscated land from an invasion road. The creation story I used to subscribe to, the one in which hard-working people came here and settled the land, now jars. Weirdly, even the lawn looks different. The form of things just won't settle.' So writes Richard Shaw in his third book examining colonisation.
So writes Richard Shaw in his third book examining colonisation in Aotearoa New Zealand. Both have been warmly welcomed by readers and this third volume of powerful essays, with its wide lens, will not disappoint. As he says, ‘Growing numbers of Pākehā find themselves standing on restless ground these days: they, too, are seeing things differently, and in these pages you will also hear their voices as we reach — fitfully and painfully, individually and collectively — for an accommodation with our colonial past.’
Richard Shaw is a professor of politics at Massey University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the author of The Forgotten Coast, The Unsettled and The Good Settler.
Paperback, 296 pages
H: 210mm W: 138mm Spine: 15mm
Weight: 200 grams