Sunday Star-Times

Damien Grant

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Few things are more dreary than New Zealand’s history. Some Polynesian­s arrived and eked out a living until some Europeans washed ashore and eked out a marginally less miserable living.

There were a few battles, debates about who should vote and we had a barney about playing rugby against some other colonials a few years back.

But really; what nine-yearold wants to know about Kate Sheppard, Dame

Whina Cooper or Michael Savage? Boring!

Tricking kids to engage with history, when you are up against YouTube, Minecraft and puberty, is a task that would defeat Bernard Freyberg.

Still. If you are going to try it pays to pick your battlefiel­d, and the 19th Century plains of Waikato is as barren a place as you can find.

Even Pompey the Great, who conquered the Middle East for Rome, swept the Mediterran­ean of pirates and defended the Republic from the ascendancy of Caesar, even while he was married to Caesar’s daughter, is going to struggle for attention against the latest Avengers release.

And if Pompey is going to struggle what prospects do the relatively

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