Atlas of the New Zealand Wars

Derek Leask’s Atlas is a magnificent labour of love. It adds a whole new — visual — dimension to our understanding of the New Zealand Wars.

In this Atlas the maps themselves tell stories: he kura i tangihia – a treasure saluted, remembered, wept over; he maimai aroha – a token of affection which weaves the heavens above and the earth below – kia tuia te rangi e tū nei, kia tuia te papa e takoto nei, and those who have fled their mortal coils – rātou i wehea atu. I await with bated breath the second volume and Derek Leask’s exploration of the war in my homelands of Waikato and Te Rohe Pōtae, the King Country. In the words of our great Rangatira Wahanui: “Hanga paitia tātou kia piri ki te piringa pono.” “Let us conduct ourselves in a proper way so that we may be bound together by a bond of unity.”

Leask’s Atlas provides a fresh window on New Zealand’s nineteenth-century wars. Through the vital vocabulary of maps, charts and sketches we see how military commanders and naval officers imagined, exercised and accounted for power. Remarkable in the exhaustive reach and detail of research, this is an invaluable addition to our historical understanding.

This is a remarkable publication. The range of maps and accompanying explanatory and contextual text is unprecedented in New Zealand historiography. It will be both an important work of reference and a contribution to scholarship.

The heightened interest in the New Zealand Wars — possibly stemming from the new history curriculum — makes this book very timely indeed. As a fan of “go there” history — matching written accounts of events with the actual landscape and topography — I find the Atlas to be invaluable. It provides a setting which gives context and a physical framework to accounts of the wars. This book is a must-have for anyone with more than a passing interest in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Because officers and officials were often trained in making sketches and competent watercolours, the maps uncovered in this book can be used to check written recollections and to reshape and correct our understanding of the New Zealand Wars. The maps reveal whole new sources of information about New Zealand history. Leask’s writing style is clear, simple and readable — so much so that I found myself reluctant to break off even to fetch more firewood. This is a landmark in New Zealand historical writing, one which all future writers of the early period will henceforth have to keep in mind.

This is an important work which has clearly taken the author many years of meticulous research in archival institutions around the world. It brings out into the open key maps and plans, many of which have laid hidden since the time of the New Zealand Wars. The maps, which capture important moments in time, are powerful and revealing documents — they can be directly related to modern-day landscapes and provide a rich layer of understanding for those interested in the New Zealand Wars. Coupled with reports of the time, they allow battles to be re-examined and, in some cases, rethought as to how they played out. This book will be an essential resource for those with an interest in the New Zealand Wars.

Derek Leask served in New Zealand’s foreign ministry from 1969 to 2012. He was ambassador to the European Union in Brussels from 1994 to 1999, Deputy Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Wellington from 2004 to 2008, and New Zealand’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (and Ambassador to Ireland) from 2008 to 2012. Leask was born in Wellington and has degrees from Victoria University of Wellington (BCA) and the University of Canterbury (MCom, Hons-Economics).