This book is the eagerly awaited companion to Professor James Belich's acclaimed Making Peoples, published in New Zealand, Britain and the United States in 1996. Making Peoples was hailed as a turning point in the writing of New Zealand history.Paradise Reforged picks up where Making Peoples left off, taking the story of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the end of the twentieth century. It begins with the search for 'Better Britain' and ends by analysing the modern Maori resurgence, the new Pakeha consciousness, and the implications of a reinterpreted past for New Zealand's future. Along the way the book deals with subjects ranging from sport and sex to childhood and popular culture.Critics hailed Making Peoples as 'brilliant' and 'the most ambitious book yet written on this country's past'. Paradise Reforged, its successor, adopts a similarly incisive, original sweep across the New Zealand historical landscape in confronting the myths of the past.
James Belich is Professor of Commonwealth and Imperial History at Oxford University in England. He was previously Professor of History at the Victoria University in Wellington.
A former Rhodes Scholar and James Cook Fellow, he has held visiting positions at the Universities of Cambridge and Georgetown. He wrote and presented the award-winning television series 'The New Zealand Wars'.
His books include The New Zealand Wars, 'I Shall Not Die', Making Peoples and its sequel Paradise Reforged
