Bridget Williams Books (BWB) is devoted to publishing important New Zealand works from credited scholars, working alongside Ngāi Tahu and Ngāi Tūhoe in particular. BWB have “steadily expanded the boundaries of what New Zealand readers can expect to discover” with “books on New Zealand history, Maōri history, women’s issues and contemporary topics” (adapted from BWB website).

This spring they are celebrating reaching 100 books, including some of Aotearoa’s most influential authors and texts – many free to access online with Wellington City Libraries. Our BWB database has direct links to three tailored collections: all publications of Te Pouhere Kōrero, The New Zealand History Collection and The Treaty of Waitangi Collection. Below we’ve shared some of their standout texts in our libraries, including links to the BWB eBooks.

Blood & dirt : prison labour and the making of New Zealand / Davidson, Jared
Blood and Dirt explains the making of New Zealand and its Pacific empire through the prism of prison labour. Davidson asks us to look beyond the walls of our nineteenth- and early twentieth-century prisons to see penal practice as playing an active, central role in the creation of modern New Zealand. Journeying from the Hohi mission station through to Milford Sound, vast forest plantations, and on to Parliament itself, this vivid and engaging book will change the way you view New Zealand. “–Publisher’s website.” (Adapted from Catalogue) (Also available as an eBook)

Te Pouhere Korero : Māori history, Māori people
“Te Pouhere Kōrero operates as a broad collective of Māori colleagues interested in history. It was established in November 1992, at an inaugural hui convened at Rongopai Marae near Gisborne, Aotearoa New Zealand. An earlier hui, held in September 1992 at Māori Studies, Massey University, had agreed that an organisation of Māori historians should be formed. At the inaugural hui, the organisation adopted the name Te Pouhere Kōrero. Te Pouhere Kōrero is its official journal.” (Catalogue) (Also available as an eBook).

 

An Indigenous Ocean : Pacific Essays / Salesa, Damon Ieremia Histories of our Pacific world are richly rendered in these essays by Damon Salesa. From the first Indigenous civilisations that flourished in Oceania to the colonial encounters of the nineteenth century, and on to the complex contemporary relationships between New Zealand and the Pacific, Salesa offers new perspectives on this vast ocean – its people, its cultures, its pasts and its future. (Adapted from Bridget Williams Books)

 

Tangata whenua : a history / Anderson, Atholl
“Tangata Whenua portrays the sweep of Māori history from Pacific origins to the twenty-first century. Through narrative and images, it offers an overview of the past, grounded in specific localities and histories”–Publisher information.” (Catalogue) (Only available as eBook)

There are 5 other texts within the Tangata Whenua series: An Illustrated History, The Old World, 3000 BC – AD 1830, The New World, 1820-1920, The Changing World 1920-2014, and Stories from Tangata Whenua.

The forgotten prophet : Tāmati Te Ito and his Kaingārara movement / Sissons, Jeffrey
Founder of the Kaingārara movement, Tāmato Te Ito Ngāmoke, wished for pan-tribal unity in Taranaki. Striving for the ‘fulfilment of the divine order’, the Kaingārara movement initiated the ‘Taranaki iconoclasm’, discarding tapu objects associated with atua (ancestral spirits, which often took the form of reptiles) into massive bonfires. Te Ito was a visionary adviser to Te Ātiawa chief Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke, and played a crucial role in the conflicted region, both before and after the wars of the 1860s. (Adapted from Bridget Williams Books)

New Zealand sign language : a reference grammar / McKee, Rachel Locker
“Drawing on her experience of both teaching and researching NZSL, Rachel McKee has developed A Reference Grammar to support all those who are learning NZSL – students, families and friends of Deaf people, school teachers, public officials. This clear account of language structure and use is illustrated with dozens of videos (accessed via the ebook), drawings and photographs.” (Adapted from the Catalogue) (eBook)

 

Fierce hope : youth activism in Aotearoa / Nairn, Karen M.
“Through interviews, youth activists vividly describe what future they want for our country and how to get there. They address an array of urgent issues, from indigenous rights to the justice system; from climate change to gender and sexual inequalities. A connecting thread is how people within different groups collectively negotiate their visions and strategies to achieve change. Their stories provide important insights into the immense demands of activism and help inform radical new ways of living and being together in Aotearoa.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

 

A question of adoption : closed stranger adoption in New Zealand 1944-1974 ; adoption, state care, donor conception and surrogacy 1975-2022 / Else, Anne
“An immensely readable account of the ideology and practice of closed stranger adoption in New Zealand, from pregnancy through to the final adoption order and its aftermath. It explores social and moral attitudes during the 1950s and 1960s, and provides a comprehensive account of creating and transferring children through the processes of adoption, state care, donor conception and surrogacy. This edition details how so many Māori children were and still are cut off from their whānau and whakapapa through adoption and state care, and how the Adoption Act 1955 came to be seen as glaringly at odds with contemporary concepts of children’s rights and best interests. (Adapted from Bridget Williams Books) (Only available as an eBook)

Voices from the New Zealand wars = He reo nō ngā pakanga o Aotearoa / O’Malley, Vincent
“This book takes us to the heart of the New Zealand Wars with first-hand accounts from Māori and Pākehā who either fought in or witnessed the wars between 1845 and 1872. The often fragmentary, sometimes hastily written accounts that make up Voices from the New Zealand Wars vividly evoke the extreme emotions – fear, horror, pity and courage – experienced during the most turbulent time in our country’s history. Each account is expertly introduced and contextualised, so that the historical record speaks to us vividly through many voices”–Publisher information.” (Adapted from Catalogue) (eBook)

 

An illustrated history of the Treaty of Waitangi / Orange, Claudia
“The Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840 by over 500 Māori chiefs and representatives of the British Crown is a document which still creates much debate. This richly illustrated book begins before the signing and tells the story of the Treaty to the present day. The history is one of two peoples meeting, of encounters and negotiations, agreements made and broken, laws, claims and protests, as Māori and Pakeha seek ways of living together in New Zealand.” (Catalogue) (eBook)