The Origins of an Experimental Society

‘Erik Olssen’s book is remarkably lucid andinsightful on a broad front of historical scholarship; it is informedprofoundly on philosophical, political and scientific thinking of theperiod, and overall a quite astonishing intellectual achievement.’ - Professor Atholl Anderson, Ngai Tahu, AustralianNational University

‘This new historyargues that New Zealand was a series of “experiments” in settling a country. Theauthor tracks the ideas, philosophies and values which were carried in settlers’baggage, the early inter-connectedness between Maori and the newcomers that reshapedthose experiments, and the profound significance of these decades for the futureof the country and its peoples.‘-Dame ClaudiaOrange, Historian, Honorary Research Fellow, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of NewZealand

‘I found this book stunning, breathtaking even, inits scope and detail. It revisits and explores the origins, themes and complexpatchwork of ideas that came together to underpin the founding years ofAotearoa New Zealand. Our early engagement with the intellectual and physicalmanifestations of global colonisation, as related by Olssen, is especiallyinteresting. This is not an easy book but steady application to its contentsleads to immeasurable rewards’. - Buddy Mikaere, Ngati Pukenga, Ngati Ranginui,Ngati Pikiao, Tuhoe

‘This is anextremely important book written by a scholar of immense learning. Olssen’somnivorous reading is the foundation for the remarkable range andsophistication of this volume. He can sketch historical contexts, see andreconstruct connections across time and space, and display a sensitivity todivergent regional patterns in manner that few who have written onnineteenth-century New Zealand have demonstrated. It is an incredibly rich text and a compelling read.’ -Professor Tony Ballantyne, University of Otago

Erik Olssen is emeritus professor at the Department of History, University of Otago. His research interests focus on the relationships between politics, society, ideas, culture and economics. He was elected an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2002 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Aparangi. His many books include A History of Otago (John McIndoe, 1984), The Red Feds: Revolutionary Industrial Unionism and the New Zealand Federation of Labour 1908-14 (Oxford University Press, 1988), Building the New World: Work, Politics and Society in Caversham 1880s-1920s (Auckland University Press, 1995), and (as co-author) An Accidental Utopia? Social Mobility and the Foundations of an Egalitarian Society, 1880-1940 (Otago University Press, 2011).