Michael Reddell. ‘Not in Narrow Seas’, Croaking Cassandra, May 30, 2020.
Brian Fallow: ‘Progress of NZ Economy Has Been a Rocky Road’ Herald, 20 June 2020.
Joan Druett: ‘Not in Narrow Seas’, World of the Written Word. 21 June 2020.
Shamubeel Eaqub: ‘Brian Easton Will Now Harrumph’, Newsroom, July 2, 2020
Max Harris: ‘Book Review – Not in Narrow Seas’, Kathryn Ryan’s ‘Nine to Noon’, Radio New Zealand, 28 August 2020.
May I correct an error? The review said that the 700 years of Maori is covered in only three chapters. In fact there are eight: 2, 3, 4, 5, 13, 30, 36, 57 while others have a significant Maori element including 8, 10, and 11. Maori items in the index take up almost two columns. Not in Narrow Seas is the most substantial analysis on the Maori economy since Raymond Firth’s Economics of the New Zealand Maori which is only about the pre-market economy. (My Heke Tangata covers only the postwar era.) For a Maori account of Maori history see Ranginui Walker’s Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou / Struggle Without End (1990) Second Edition (2004).
Gerald McGhie: ‘Review of ‘Not in Narrow Seas’, New Zealand Journal of International Affairs, November/December, Vol 46, No 6, p.28.
Giovanni Tiso: ‘Filling the Hollow Society’, Landfall 240 Summer 2020.
Steve Braunias at Newsroom wrote that the best review of the years was ““Filling the hollow society” by Giovanni Tiso in Landfall. As you would expect, there were numerous really good reviews at New Zealand’s best books section; I think the best at ‘ReadingRoom’ this year were by Jesse Mulligan on the new Chelsea Winter cookbook, and Jenny Nicholls on Paul Spoonley’s demographic study The New New Zealand. Elsewhere, Nicholas Reid, writing for the Academy of New Zealand Literature, patiently and rigorously took apart Tom Scott’s biography of Charles Upham, and the always insightful Philip Matthews provided a masterclass of fiction reviewing with his review of Tally Stick by Carl Nixon, also at the Academy site. But the very best review of 2020 was by Giovanni Tiso in Landfall 240 of Brian Easton’s economic history Not In Narrow Seas. Tiso references WB Sutch, Bruce Jesson and Ranginui Walker as he places Easton’s great work in the tradition of important histories of how New Zealand was shaped. He talks about the book reaching “an undeniable crescendo”; the review operates that way, too, as both Easton and Tiso size up the trauma – and abject failure – of Rogernomics. This is first-class thinking and a joy to read.”
Jeremy Agar: ‘Not In Narrow Seas The Economic History Of Aotearoa’, Watchdog 155 December 2020, p.80-85.
Tom Brooking, Jim McAloon and Melanie Nolan gave excellent critiques at the November 2021 New Zealand History Association Conference. They are password protected.