Non-fiction Histories by Stevan Eldred-Grigg
Stevan Eldred-Grigg writes history and other non-fiction dealing mostly with New Zealand. Yet he is a regionalist and an internationalist, not a nationalist. Regionalism means that he writes more about his own island, the South Island, than other parts of New Zealand. Canterbury and the West Coast are a particular focus. Regionalism also means that when he does write about the whole of New Zealand he has a lively awareness of local and regional variations. His internationalism means that when he writes about New Zealand he often looks at its actions as a colonising power in Samoa, Niue, the Cook Islands, Tonga and elsewhere in the Pacific. And he looks at its actions as a military power. No ‘enemy’ state has ever declared war on New Zealand. New Zealand, on the other hand, has attacked other states. The New Zealand government declared war on Germany, Japan and their allies in the Second World War. The New Zealand government, without even bothering to declare war, attacked Germany, Turkey and their allies in the First World War. China and its peoples are another focus of works by Stevan Eldred-Grigg. New Zealand governments and the peoples of New Zealand have been linked for more than two centuries with the governments and peoples of China.
Freedom and democracy, equality and inequality, justice and injustice, are questions at the heart of all his written works. Stevan is passionate about freedom and democracy. He is passionate about equality. He is passionate about justice. At the same time, as the son of a witty working-class mother and clever middle-class father, he is not doctrinaire but instead is keenly alert to contradictions, ambiguities, the endlessly shifting sands beneath society. The sands keep shifting not only under class but also gender and ethnicity.
Freedom and democracy, equality and inequality, justice and injustice, are questions at the heart of all his written works. Stevan is passionate about freedom and democracy. He is passionate about equality. He is passionate about justice. At the same time, as the son of a witty working-class mother and clever middle-class father, he is not doctrinaire but instead is keenly alert to contradictions, ambiguities, the endlessly shifting sands beneath society. The sands keep shifting not only under class but also gender and ethnicity.
HISTORIES
Phoney Wars (with Hugh Eldred-Grigg), Otago University Press (Dunedin) 2017
White Ghosts, Yellow Peril (with Zeng Dazheng 曾达峥), Otago University Press (Dunedin) 2014
People, People, People, David Bateman (Auckland) 2011
The Great Wrong War, Random House (Auckland) 2010
Diggers, Hatters and Whores, Random House (Auckland) 2008
Xin Xilan de Wenxue Lucheng, Unitas (Taipei), 2004
The Rich: a New Zealand History, Penguin (Auckland), 1996
New Zealand Working People, Dunmore (Palmerston North) 1990
Pleasures of the Flesh, Reed Methuen (Wellington) 1984
A New History of Canterbury, John McIndoe (Dunedin), 1982
A Southern Gentry, AH & AW Reed (Wellington), 1980, 1986
Phoney Wars (with Hugh Eldred-Grigg), Otago University Press (Dunedin) 2017
White Ghosts, Yellow Peril (with Zeng Dazheng 曾达峥), Otago University Press (Dunedin) 2014
People, People, People, David Bateman (Auckland) 2011
The Great Wrong War, Random House (Auckland) 2010
Diggers, Hatters and Whores, Random House (Auckland) 2008
Xin Xilan de Wenxue Lucheng, Unitas (Taipei), 2004
The Rich: a New Zealand History, Penguin (Auckland), 1996
New Zealand Working People, Dunmore (Palmerston North) 1990
Pleasures of the Flesh, Reed Methuen (Wellington) 1984
A New History of Canterbury, John McIndoe (Dunedin), 1982
A Southern Gentry, AH & AW Reed (Wellington), 1980, 1986
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The Great Wrong War: New Zealand Society in WWI
The First World War was by far the worst catastrophe in the history of twentieth-century New Zealand. The Great Wrong War asks why the country went to war, whether it could or should have pulled out after the first slaughter, and what may have been the true costs. Quick, vivid, democratic and questioning, the book probes social, political and emotional life in New Zealand during those murderous years. The sincerity and the malice, the stubbornness and the yearnings of warring New Zealanders are central to the story. Readers have been polarised by the book.
Deborah Montgomerie, Weekend Herald: ‘We have been put on trial and found wanting. We went to war for the wrong reasons and did bad things in war’s name.’
Graham Adams, Metro: ‘Eldred-Grigg writes with authority and verve.’
Nicholas Reid, Sunday Star-Times: ‘shouts, shrieks and bellows … Eldred-Grigg would have us believe that Germany bore virtually no responsibility for the war at all.’
Bookiemonster, http://bookiemonster.co.nz/: ‘The Great Wrong War has brought up a lot of questions for me about the present – the growing nationalist fervour around Anzac Day, the pervasive myth that we were fighting a “just” war in WW1, the ideas of “sacrifice” and the encroachment upon civil and individual rights in the name of political expediency in a crisis. Packed with illustrations, it’s also a beautiful object of a book.’
Random House, Auckland 2010
ISBN 978 1 86979 263 3
https://www.penguin.co.nz/books/the-great-wrong-war-9781775530886
The First World War was by far the worst catastrophe in the history of twentieth-century New Zealand. The Great Wrong War asks why the country went to war, whether it could or should have pulled out after the first slaughter, and what may have been the true costs. Quick, vivid, democratic and questioning, the book probes social, political and emotional life in New Zealand during those murderous years. The sincerity and the malice, the stubbornness and the yearnings of warring New Zealanders are central to the story. Readers have been polarised by the book.
Deborah Montgomerie, Weekend Herald: ‘We have been put on trial and found wanting. We went to war for the wrong reasons and did bad things in war’s name.’
Graham Adams, Metro: ‘Eldred-Grigg writes with authority and verve.’
Nicholas Reid, Sunday Star-Times: ‘shouts, shrieks and bellows … Eldred-Grigg would have us believe that Germany bore virtually no responsibility for the war at all.’
Bookiemonster, http://bookiemonster.co.nz/: ‘The Great Wrong War has brought up a lot of questions for me about the present – the growing nationalist fervour around Anzac Day, the pervasive myth that we were fighting a “just” war in WW1, the ideas of “sacrifice” and the encroachment upon civil and individual rights in the name of political expediency in a crisis. Packed with illustrations, it’s also a beautiful object of a book.’
Random House, Auckland 2010
ISBN 978 1 86979 263 3
https://www.penguin.co.nz/books/the-great-wrong-war-9781775530886
Phoney Wars: New Zealand Society in the Second World War
with Hugh Eldred-Grigg
A lively social history arguing that New Zealand had no business going to war against either Germany in 1939 or Japan in 1941. The motives for doing so were muddled and contradictory. Also the country was never in danger of being bombed by any ‘enemy’ air force or invaded by any ‘enemy’ army.
Eldred-Grigg questions the war as a story of ‘good’ against ‘bad.’ Everyone knows the Axis powers behaved ruthlessly, but how many are aware of the brutality of the Allied powers in bombing and starving not only Axis but even Allied peoples? New Zealand colluded in and helped carry out such brutal aggressions. Were we, in going to war, really on the side of the angels?
‘Ultimately there was no compelling reason for New Zealand to involve itself in the war … All military effort by the dominion was more or less meaningless. New Zealand could have enjoyed the blessings of its safety without going onto a gruelling and wasteful war footing.’
Nearly eighty years on, the reasons for New Zealand going to war need to be interrogated closely. Was it in the best interests of the people of New Zealand.
Otago University Press, Dunedin 2017
ISBN 978 1 877578 65 6
https://www.otago.ac.nz/press/books/otago666247.html
with Hugh Eldred-Grigg
A lively social history arguing that New Zealand had no business going to war against either Germany in 1939 or Japan in 1941. The motives for doing so were muddled and contradictory. Also the country was never in danger of being bombed by any ‘enemy’ air force or invaded by any ‘enemy’ army.
Eldred-Grigg questions the war as a story of ‘good’ against ‘bad.’ Everyone knows the Axis powers behaved ruthlessly, but how many are aware of the brutality of the Allied powers in bombing and starving not only Axis but even Allied peoples? New Zealand colluded in and helped carry out such brutal aggressions. Were we, in going to war, really on the side of the angels?
‘Ultimately there was no compelling reason for New Zealand to involve itself in the war … All military effort by the dominion was more or less meaningless. New Zealand could have enjoyed the blessings of its safety without going onto a gruelling and wasteful war footing.’
Nearly eighty years on, the reasons for New Zealand going to war need to be interrogated closely. Was it in the best interests of the people of New Zealand.
Otago University Press, Dunedin 2017
ISBN 978 1 877578 65 6
https://www.otago.ac.nz/press/books/otago666247.html
People, People, People: A Brief History of New Zealand
‘New Zealand in the year 1200 was a land of trees and birds – and no people. The two main islands were covered nearly entirely in deep, dark, cool forest. New Zealand was entirely unknown to any people anywhere in the world.’ A very short history of New Zealand, this book covers many themes and is illustrated with an array of beautiful works of art. The themes include discovery, settlement, war, work, money, power, sex, love and play. People, People, People begins with the arrival of the first Polynesians and follows right through to the present day.
David Bateman, Auckland 2011
ISBN 978-1-86953-813-2
Diggers, Hatters and Whores: The Story of the New Zealand Gold Rushes
The gold rushes from the 1850s to the 1870s were the biggest event in the history of colonial New Zealand. Diggers, Hatters and Whores aims to bring to life, through fresh accessible writing and beautiful images, the thrilling and often desperate quest for the ‘royal metal.’ The book opens with a survey of worldwide gold rushes, when for the first time in history a vast army of diggers began to swarm from continent to continent, then looks at the rushes of Golden Bay, Otago, the West Coast and the Thames. Afterwards, various themes of the rushes are examined systematically.
Edmund Bohan: ‘simply the best and most lively overall historical account I have yet come across of the world’s great goldrushes … written in a forthright and racy style.’
Nicholas Reid: ‘capacious, lavishly illustrated and lively … one of the three books of the year I’ve enjoyed most.’
Lawrence Jones: ‘big, rollicking … sweat, scandal, sex and money.’
Michael Field: ‘a tour de force … immensely readable, an important work and an inevitable high flier for book awards.’
http://schroedingerstabby.blogspot.com: ‘Stevan Eldred-Grigg’s magisterial history of the New Zealand gold rushes almost reads like a vast and brilliant novel in the vein of Moby Dick.’
Random House, Auckland 2008
ISBN 978-1-86941-925-7
https://www.penguin.co.nz/books/diggers-hatters-and-whores-9781869797034
The gold rushes from the 1850s to the 1870s were the biggest event in the history of colonial New Zealand. Diggers, Hatters and Whores aims to bring to life, through fresh accessible writing and beautiful images, the thrilling and often desperate quest for the ‘royal metal.’ The book opens with a survey of worldwide gold rushes, when for the first time in history a vast army of diggers began to swarm from continent to continent, then looks at the rushes of Golden Bay, Otago, the West Coast and the Thames. Afterwards, various themes of the rushes are examined systematically.
Edmund Bohan: ‘simply the best and most lively overall historical account I have yet come across of the world’s great goldrushes … written in a forthright and racy style.’
Nicholas Reid: ‘capacious, lavishly illustrated and lively … one of the three books of the year I’ve enjoyed most.’
Lawrence Jones: ‘big, rollicking … sweat, scandal, sex and money.’
Michael Field: ‘a tour de force … immensely readable, an important work and an inevitable high flier for book awards.’
http://schroedingerstabby.blogspot.com: ‘Stevan Eldred-Grigg’s magisterial history of the New Zealand gold rushes almost reads like a vast and brilliant novel in the vein of Moby Dick.’
Random House, Auckland 2008
ISBN 978-1-86941-925-7
https://www.penguin.co.nz/books/diggers-hatters-and-whores-9781869797034
White Ghosts, Yellow Peril: China and New Zealand 1790-1950
with Zeng Dazheng (曾达峥)
White Ghosts, Yellow Peril is the first book ever to explore all sides of the relationship between China and New Zealand, and the peoples of China and New Zealand, during the whole of the seven or so generations after they initially came into contact. The Qing Empire and its successor states from 1790 to 1950 were vast, complex and torn by conflict. New Zealand, meanwhile, grew into a small, prosperous, orderly province of Europe. Not until now has anyone told the story of the links and tensions between the two countries during those years so broadly and so thoroughly.
The reader keen to know about this relationship will find in this book a highly readable portrait of the lives, thoughts and feelings of Chinese who came to New Zealand and New Zealanders who went to China, along with a scholarly but stimulating discussion of race relations, government, diplomacy, war, literature and the arts.
White Ghosts, Yellow Peril for some years to come will be the key general text in the field of the early history of New Zealand and China.
Otago University Press, Dunedin 2014
ISBN 978 1 877578 65 6
https://www.otago.ac.nz/press/books/otago077704.html
with Zeng Dazheng (曾达峥)
White Ghosts, Yellow Peril is the first book ever to explore all sides of the relationship between China and New Zealand, and the peoples of China and New Zealand, during the whole of the seven or so generations after they initially came into contact. The Qing Empire and its successor states from 1790 to 1950 were vast, complex and torn by conflict. New Zealand, meanwhile, grew into a small, prosperous, orderly province of Europe. Not until now has anyone told the story of the links and tensions between the two countries during those years so broadly and so thoroughly.
The reader keen to know about this relationship will find in this book a highly readable portrait of the lives, thoughts and feelings of Chinese who came to New Zealand and New Zealanders who went to China, along with a scholarly but stimulating discussion of race relations, government, diplomacy, war, literature and the arts.
White Ghosts, Yellow Peril for some years to come will be the key general text in the field of the early history of New Zealand and China.
Otago University Press, Dunedin 2014
ISBN 978 1 877578 65 6
https://www.otago.ac.nz/press/books/otago077704.html
