What I’m reading Dame Claudia Orange

Growing up in Ponsonby was made special by the Leys Institute public library. Its children’s’ librarian fed me a book a day, which I devoured, and headed back for more.

Now a historian with decades in research, writing and publishing behind me, the luxury of reading a book a day is not feasible. While holiday breaks allow time for ‘‘whodunits’’ (Jane Harper’s fourth book, The Lost Man), other reading focuses on excellent history books produced by others.

One is Shifting Grounds by Lucy Mackintosh. The fact that history is not about the past but the present is exemplified by this book. Its several sections on Tāmaki Makaurau allow one to attack, enjoy and read each, to a final satisfying conclusion.

Lucy’s conclusion sums up the connectedness of history with the present: ‘‘An expansive timeframe undermines any simple phasing of the past into clearly delineated periods, and reveals how our current moment is inflected with remnants of earlier histories that have been dismantled, rearranged and built upon over time.’’

I’m also reading again the final new history curriculum for levels 1 to 10 (just released) and Morgan Godfery’s article, Learning history is less about what than why (published in The Dominion Post, March 24, and available to read at stuff.co.nz). As he notes the ‘‘point of a history education is not just the facts but to evaluate why things happened and their continuing impact through the years’’. This will be the plus of history students’ work in the next decade, if the curriculum is successful.

Godfery’s observation that the chief skill of an historian is to evaluate evidence, means that mostly my reading remains focused on continuing research – as well as on critical assessment of that published by others.

I’ve read several books recently that cover the political periods of their writers. There is no doubt that historians will use them for future evaluation: Margaret Wilson’s Activism, Feminism, Politics and Parliament, Michael Cullen’s book Labour Saving, and He Kupu Taurangi, by Christopher Finlayson and James Christmas.

Dame Claudia Orange is a writer and historian whose books include The Treaty of Waitangi Te Titiri o Waitangi, and The Story of a Treaty (new edition coming late 2022; Bridget Williams Books). In 2021, she was awarded the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Literary Achievement (Non-fiction).