Region: Wellington

About Me:

Hi, I live in Island Bay, Wellington, where I write while watching the ships in Cook Strait when not working at my day job as a Senior Historian for the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

For the MCH, I'm currently co-editing (with Ian McGibbon) an anthology of war writing that Penguin will publish in 2009, co-writing with Tim Shoebridge a history of quarantine/biosecurity in NZ (2010 publication date) and working on a longer-term history of the New Zealand prime ministership.

In addition to my MCH books, I usually have a few private publications on the go.  I'm currently finishing a history of the New Zealand Shipping Federation (2009 publication) and am starting a centennial history of the Lyall Bay Surf Life Saving Club (2010). In addition, and away from maritime history, I am picking away at a longer-term project, about the history published by New Zealand historians.

History

• Kiwitown's Port: The Story of Oamaru Harbour, Otago University Press, 2008
• Rocks Astern: New Zealand Shipwrecks, Grantham House, 2007
• Whare Korero: Best Reed Writing, Reed Books, 2007
• Whare Raupo: The Reed Books Story, Reed Books, 2007
• How to Do Local History, Otago University Press, 2007
  
• Take-Off: The Helicopters New Zealand Story, Hazard Press, 2006
• The Governors: New Zealand's Governors and Governors-General, Otago University Press, 2006
• We Were Different: The Tasman Express Line Story, Ventures Two Ltd, 2004
• Pictures from the Past: Wellington & Wairarapa, Random House, 2002
• 100 Historic Places in New Zealand, Hodder Moa Beckett, 2002
• Rocking the Boat: A Centennial History of George H. Scales Ltd, Scales Corporation, 2002
• Pictures From the Past: Wellington & Wairarapa, Whitcoulls, 2002
• Captain's Log: New Zealand's Maritime History, Hodder Moa Beckett, 2001
• New Zealand's Maritime Heritage, the Twentieth Century, Grantham House, 2000
• Wellington, The First Years 1840-1850, Penguin, 2000
• New Zealand Nautical Yarns, Grantham House, 1993
• New Zealand Tragedies: Fires and Firefighting, Grantham House, 1992
• Local History: a Short Guide to Researching, Writing and Publishing a Local History, Bridget Williams Books, 1992
• New Zealand Tragedies: Shipwrecks and Maritime Disasters, Grantham House, 1991 and 1995
  
• Ships of the Union Steam Ship Company; Ships of the New Zealand Shipping Company and New Zealand Coastal Passenger Ships, Wellington Maritime Museum, GP Books, 1990
• Masters or Servants?, NZ Merchant Service Guild, 1990
• The Southern Octopus: the Rise of a Shipping Empire, Wellington Maritime Museum/NZ Ship & Marine Society, 1990
• Richardsons of Napier, NZ Ship & Marine Society, 1989
• Sam's Grief, Otago Heritage Books, 1989
• Canterbury Coasters, NZ Ship & Marine Society, 1987
• Moeraki: 150 Years of Net & Ploughshare, Otago Heritage Books, 1986
• Otago Harbour; Currents of Controversy, Otago Harbour Board, 1985
• Oamaru Harbour: Port in a Storm, Dunmore Press, 1982
• Spinning Yarns; a Centennial History of Alliance Textiles Ltd, Alliance, 1981

Guides

• Wellington: History, Heritage & Culture, University of Otago Press, 2004
• Dunedin: History, Heritage & Wildlife, University of Otago Press, 2003
• Oamaru, History & Heritage, University of Otago Press, 2002
• Historic Wellington, A Walking Tour, Reed Books, 1998

Edited and co-edited publications

• Oamaru 1878: A Colonial Town, by K.C. McDonald, edited and illustrated, Waitaki District Council, 2006
• New Zealand Historians Write about Places Where History Happened, (Kynan Gentry co-editor), Penguin, 2006
• Frontier of Dreams: The Story of New Zealand (Bronwyn Dalley co-editor), Hodder Moa, 2005
• Text to Historic Shipwrecks Around New Zealand (Eric Heath illustrator), Grantham House, 1994
• Spirits (with David Hindley), GP Books, 1990

Conservation reports

• No Continuing City: a History of the Stone Store, Kerikeri, NZ Historic Places Trust, 1995
• Draft Stone Store Conservation Plan (contributing editor), NZ Historic Places Trust, 1995

Chapters, catalogues etc

• Good Books Make Good Citizens: The Reed Books Story, catalogue to accompany a National Library Gallery exhibition, 2007
• ‘The Kerikeri Stone Store: A Backwater White Elephant', in Judith Binney (ed), Te Kerikeri 1770-1850: The Meeting Pool, BWB/Craig Potton, 2007
• ‘The Fourth Service: The Merchant Marine's War', in John Crawford and Ian McGibbon (eds), New Zealand's Great War: New Zealand, the Allies and the First World War, Exisle, 2007
• ‘From Hobson to Hubbing: Auckland's Maritime History', in City of Enterprise (Ian Hunter & Diane Morrow, (eds), AUP, 2006
• 'The Queen in Drag: New Zealand's Governors-General in the Twentieth Century', in Exploring the British World: Identity, Cultural Production, Institutions; pages: 979-1002. Darian-Smith, Kate (Editor); Grimshaw, Patricia (Editor); Lindsey, Kiera (Editor); Mcintyre, Stuart (Editor). Melbourne: RMIT Publishing, 2004

• ‘Business as Unusual: Managing and Funding the Centennial Exhibition' and ‘Hurrah for Playland!' in Creating a National Spirit: Celebrating New Zealand's Centennial, Bill Renwick (ed), VUP, 2004
• The Southern Octopus, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Wellington, 2003
• ‘It's History Jim, But Not As We Know It', chapter on historians and heritage in Bronwyn Dalley and Jock Phillips (eds), Going Public, AUP, 2001
• ‘Where Sheep May Not Safely Graze' and ‘From Shrine to Shop', plus ‘Public History, Heritage and Place' (co-authored with Alexander Trapeznik) and ‘Heritage and the Big Picture' (co-authored with Ian Barber) in Common Ground? Heritage and Public Places in New Zealand, University of Otago Press, 2000
• ‘Street-Level Chemistry: The Past in the present at Historic Places', in Bronwyn Dalley & Bronwyn Labrum (eds), Fragments: New Zealand Social and Cultural History, Auckland University Press, 2000
• Entries in Ian McGibbon (ed), The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History, OUP, 2000
• ‘The Colony Commodified: Trade, Progress and the Real Business of Exhibitions', in John Mansfield Thompson (ed), Farewell Colonialism, Dunmore Press, 1998
• ‘New Zealand', chapter on naval and maritime history, co-authored with Ian McGibbon in John Hattendorf (ed.), Ubi Sumus? the State of Naval and Maritime History, Naval War College Press, 1994
• entries in Dictionary of New Zealand Biography Vols.2-3, Internal Affairs/BWB, 1993 and 1996
• ‘Harmony From the Human Bedlam': chapter on writing family history for GRINZ Yearbook 1993

Television

Captain's Log, Frontier of Dreams

Cruise ship lecturing

Holland America Line, P&O, Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Web

• Web features on NZHistory.net.nz and TeAra.govt.nz