The Origins of an Experimental Society

In this majorwork, one of our leading historians offers a new account of the origins of NewZealand: how Pakeha settlers - nurtured on Enlightenment thought andevangelical humanitarianism - encountered Maori, and how the two peoples togetherdeveloped a distinctively experimental society.

With James Cook'sarrival in 1769 and the subsequent colonisation, New Zealand became one of thefew post-Enlightenment experiments in creating a new nation anywhere in theworld. The Europeans who settled these islands brought with them a belief inthe power of reason and experience to improve peoples and societies. Encountersbetween Maori and these new arrivals profoundly shaped the thoughts andbehaviours of both peoples.

Olssen arguesthat the people who settled New Zealand planned two experiments in making abetter society. They hoped that, in contrast to earlier colonial projects, theindigenous New Zealanders would not be driven to extinction but eventually taketheir place as equals in a modern commercial society. And they aimed to createa society that was fairer and more just than the one they had left behind; a'Better Britain'. While both experiments were first conceived by savants and philosophers,they gained ongoing support, by lodging in the hearts and minds of the settlers:whalers and missionaries, mothers and farmers. In turn, Maori adapted these newideas to their own ends, giving up slavery and inter-tribal warfare, and adaptingthe institutions of the colonisers in ways that would re-define theexperiments.

This then is anethnography of 'tangata Pakeha', a people of European descent changed by theirencounters with 'tangata Maori' and their land - just as Maori were themselveschanged - and the story of the society they built together. Ranging acrossintellectual and cultural history, from the beach at Paihia to the coffeehouses of Paris, Olssen enables us to understand the origins of New Zealandanew.

'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 Departmentof History, University of Otago. His research interests focus on therelationships between politics, society, ideas, culture and economics. He waselected an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2002 and is a Fellow ofthe Royal Society of New Zealand Te Aparangi. His many books include AHistory of Otago (John McIndoe, 1984), The Red Feds: RevolutionaryIndustrial Unionism and the New Zealand Federation of Labour 1908-14 (OxfordUniversity Press, 1988), Building the New World: Work, Politics and Societyin Caversham 1880s-1920s (Auckland University Press, 1995), and (as co-author) AnAccidental Utopia? Social Mobility and the Foundations of an Egalitarian Society,1880-1940 (Otago University Press, 2011).

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