History

Charles Upham was the most highly decorated soldier in the Commonwealth forces of WWII, and could arguably be called the bravest soldier of the war. He won two Victoria Crosses (the only combat soldier ever to do so) and in the opinion of his superiors deserved many more.

Inside New Zealand's underworld of Organised Crime

In Down South, writer Bruce Ansley goes on a journey of rediscovery, back to his beloved South Island. From Curio Bay in Southland to Totaranui in Golden Bay, this is both a provocative history and a vast expedition across the land once known as Middle Island, as Ansley visits th...e places and people who hold the clues to the South's famous character. Not so very long ago, the South Island had most of New Zealand's people and just about all of the money. Gold miners found fortunes in the hills and rivers, sheep barons bestrode mountains, valleys and plains. Wealthy southerners ruled the embryonic government. Where now lies the South Island's golden fleece? And what is its future? Bruce Ansley has spent much of his life in the South Island. He was raised in New Brighton, Christchurch, and has lived in Dunedin, Christchurch, the Marlborough Sounds and Golden Bay. He has grown up with the south's people, its cities, towns, rivers, mountains, rivers, bush and plains. He has picked tobacco in Motueka, been a commercial fisherman in Fiordland and a deer farmer on Banks Peninsula. He has worked in radio, television and newspapers there and for almost quarter of a century was the Christchurch-based writer for the NZ Listener magazine. As a writer, tramper and traveller, and being professionally nosey, he has poked into many corners of the island, although nowhere near all of them: He finds the south and its people endlessly fascinating. There's always something new, or fresh, or interesting, or just reassuring to discover. He now lives on Waiheke Island to be close to his family, but his heart remains in the south.
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* Long-awaited short and reorganised version of The Musket Wars * Brilliantly written and clearly explained, with fact boxes * Detailed maps and plentiful illustrations Ron Crosby brilliantly rewrites his seminal The Musket Wars on a thematic basis, simplifying it to a concise wo...rk full of maps and illustrations for the general reader.
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Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, Ceausescu, Mengistu of Ethiopia and Duvalier of Haiti. No dictator can rule through fear and violence alone. Naked power can be grabbed and held temporarily, but it never suffices in the long term. A tyrant who can compel his ow...n people to acclaim him will last longer. The paradox of the modern dictator is that he must create the illusion of popular support. Throughout the twentieth century, hundreds of millions of people were condemned to enthusiasm, obliged to hail their leaders even as they were herded down the road to serfdom. In How to Be a Dictator, Frank Dikoetter returns to eight of the most chillingly effective personality cults of the twentieth century. From carefully choreographed parades to the deliberate cultivation of a shroud of mystery through iron censorship, these dictators ceaselessly worked on their own image and encouraged the population at large to glorify them. At a time when democracy is in retreat, are we seeing a revival of the same techniques among some of today's world leaders? This timely study, told with great narrative verve, examines how a cult takes hold, grows, and sustains itself. It places the cult of personality where it belongs, at the very heart of tyranny.
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