Robert and Joanna Consedine have managed to be thoughtfully provocative … challenging and inclusive … using our history in all its shades and variety as a means of understanding of where we are now and why.
John Campbell, Radio New Zealand
There have been many Treaty books adding fuel to the debate - this one adds light, not heat.
Chris Bourke, North and South
This book provides some genuinely important and much needed insight to advance justice, reconciliation and healing between Pakeha and Maori.
Mike Riddell, Tui Motu InterIslands
I hope…many more New Zealanders will read [this book] carefully and…come to an awareness of the history we have been denied.
Emeritus Professor Ivan Snook
Should more New Zealanders read this book [the authors] will have made a big contribution to the shaping of our future.
Terry Hearn, Otago Daily Times
I remember signing background vocals on the Australian Aboriginal group Yothu Yindi’s song "Treaty". I felt proud at the time that at least New Zealand had a Treaty. After reading Healing Our History I am reminded that we have no reason to feel smug. The theme, for Pakeha, of personal responsibility, to learn and apply the lessons of history, comes through loud and clear. Robert & Joanna Consedine contextualize our own story with stories from other places, allowing a breath of air into the argument.
Frank Sargeson out of print. Ronald Hugh Morrison out of print. Literary and historical amnesia spring from the same culture of forgetting. Healing Our History reminds us that for all the stories of duplicity, cruelty and ignorance, there may be still be one place where poetry and politics can meet.
Tim Finn
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