Here, for your reading pleasure, is the full book review of Ned Fletcher's 'English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi' — the complete 17,000-word "epic libertarian response to Ned Fletcher's interpretation of the Treaty," along with footnotes, more history, and an extended discussion of rights and rangitiratanga. I invite you to download the full PDF version here.
Or if you like you can read it online in its original five parts, and comment, beginning here.
Or the abridged two-part version that featured at Newsrooom over Waitangi weekend:
And of course, feel free to just stay and look around. You could start down there on the left, with the 'Popular Posts' of the recent (and not-so-recent) past ...
PS: The review draws on research I've been doing for a book, to be a general history of New Zealand — working title A Politically Incorrect History of New Zealand: The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Something More Like the Truth. A well-reasoned, well-documented, vigorous pushback against some of the more mouthy myths that divide this place.Or maybe: A Positive History of Aotearoa: The First Five Million. A clear-eyed sort of celebration of the prosperous little place we five-million-or-so get to enjoy, despite our divisions, and how it got to be that way.
Anyway, my history blog A Politically Incorrect History of New Zealand is slowly filling up with snippets of the writing I've been doing for that book, whatever it's finally called. So feel free to check that out as well. (The draft Preface for the book is here. And 'An Entire History of NZ in One Chart' is here.)
Enjoy!
3 comments:
"(it is said that it was he who wrote, in just 48 hours, the 1933 Bill outlawing slavery in the British Empire)."
Should be 1833 - is it still early enough to get them to change it?
Oops. Yeah, that's a bit of a stuff up, that one. Mine, I'm afraid.
Hopefully intelligent readers like yourself will spot the context.
To be honest, I didn't realise the Slavery Abolition Act was passed so late as 1833. I thought it had been passed earlier. Certainly slavery was outlawed in the US New England states over two decades before that.
"It received Royal Assent on August 28, 1833, and took effect on August 1, 1834."
Imagine that. Allowing that state of affairs to carry on for over 11 months more. At what cost in lives and misery?
It makes the delay in the 11am ceasefire on 11/11/1918 seem civilised. I guess the difference in advancement of communications technology and the geographical range of the British Empire (as against the Western Front-focussed fighting of the First "World War") played its part.
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