Matthew Wright books in print

Third edition, Intruder Books, Wellington, 2024

ISBN ISBN-978-0-908318-29-2

Explore the remarkable history of New Zealand’s lifestyle province, brief by world standards but filled with pace and life. This is the only one-volume history of Hawke’s Bay currently in print, covering the full span of Hawke’s Bay’s human history from the arrival of Maori to the rumbustious nineteenth century settler era with its cowboy capitalists, ‘shepherd kings’ and land sharks. The book explores the highs and lows of the twentieth century with its wars, depressions and booms, and offers ways of understanding the dramatic economic and social transformations of the late twentieth century.

This book was first published in 2017 and then in second edition in 2019. This updated third edition is issued in full colour and includes previously unpublished historic colour photographs along with coverage of the 2023 Cyclone Gabrielle disaster.

Available from any good New Zealand bookshop or from the author.

Bateman Books, Auckland, 2018

ISBN 9781869539962

This book explores the social evolution and place of New Zealand’s most historically significant document, the Treaty of Waitangi, from its origins to its place in the present day. From the early cultural collisions between Maori and Pakeha that led to this landmark agreement, to the many reinterpretations that have followed, Waitangi: A Living Treaty brings the story and concepts of the Treaty to life in this revealing and thought-provoking read.

This book was used as a core text for the Treaty course at Lincoln University. Available at any good New Zealand bookshop or direct from the publisher.

Third edition, Bateman Books, Auckland 2023

ISBN 9781776890897

Matthew Wright’s mammoth general history of New Zealand was first published by Reed in 2004 and has been selling steadily since. This revised and expanded third edition runs to more than 500 large-format pages and brings New Zealand’s turbulent and exciting past to life, tracing a journey from the arrival of Polynesians to discovery by Europe, exploring the dramatic colonial era, the impacts of the world wars, the era of the Pavlova Paradise, the Rogernomics revolution, and the dramatic impacts of Covid 19. The text of around 130,000 words is interpretative and fully referenced. In and around it are nearly 600 paintings, maps, sketches and photographs primarily from the collection of the Alexander Turnbull Library.

Available from all good bookshops and direct online from the publisher.

Oratia Books, Auckland 2021

ISBN 978-0-947506-93-3I

This short general history of the New Zealand Wars is part of the Oratia New Zealand series, aimed at younger readers and as a brief general introduction to the subject. This book won the Storylines Notable Book Award in 2022. It explores the events of the wars and the place they hold in New Zealand history, including the battle of Gate Pa, Pai Marire, and figures such as Colonel G. S. Whitmore and Te Kooti.

The New Zealand Wars shows that the wars, which spanned 30 years from the 1840s, essentially ended up as a civil war. A glossary explains military terms and the book contains sidebars that explore subjects such as whether Maori invented trench warfare. More than 70 colour images are included.

Buy from any good New Zealand bookshop or direct from the publisher.

Oratia Books, Auckland 2020

ISBN 978-0-947506-72-8

British playwright and author James Barrie once called Bernard Freyberg ‘Peter Pan grown up’.

But how much do we really know of the man behind the myth? And what enabled a humble immigrant child in Wellington to become a hero in two wars, friend to literary giants and politicians, very private father and husband, and very public governor-general?

In this fresh account of one of the 20th-century’s greatest New Zealanders, Matthew Wright cuts through the mythology to find the story of Bernard Freyberg the man.

USNI Press, Annapolis, 2021 (co-published with Oratia Books, Auckland and Seaforth, Barnsley)

ISBN 978-1-526784-0-32

In 1909 the New Zealand government gifted Britain a ‘first class dreadnought’. The ship that emerged was not such a vessel, but the act has been mythologised ever since, misrepresented in specialist naval histories and political accounts alike.

Matthew Wright’s scholarly re-examination utilises original documentary source material to evaluate the actual course of events and break through the veil, revealing the offer as a failed effort to steal the high ground in trans-Tasman naval politics.

Oratia, Auckland 2017

ISBN 978-0-947506-19-3

This far-reaching social analysis of the impact of the First World War on New Zealand’s soldiers takes readers on a gut-wrenching journey through the Gallipoli and Western Front campaigns, exploring how pre-war visions of glory were broken on the battlefield. A chapter is devoted to discussing the Gallipoli participation debate and relating it to the social impact on New Zealand. This thoroughly researched and scholarly work is a must-read for anybody wanting to understand how the ‘war to end all wars’ re-shaped lives.

Available from all good New Zealand bookshops or direct from the publisher.