While many readers will say ‘the king is certainly not above the law’, not everyone believes that, especially if they are in power. The term ‘democracy’ is complicated and often used misleadingly. For instance, the ‘German Democratic Republic’ (a.k.a. East Germany), which was a part of the Soviet Empire, had one male in four reporting…
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All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways. The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views of Robert Muldoon, prime…
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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…
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Watchdog 155 December 2020, p.80-85. Brian Easton has been researching the New Zealand economy for about 60 years. He writes that the pre-sent analysis is offered as a summary of his life’s work. By focussing on the economy, Easton wants to emphasise that it is how people earn a living that shapes social relations. As…
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New Zealand International Review, January/February 2021 Vol 46, No 1: p.28-29 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2020, 321pp, £20) The outcome of a long war is usually determined by the economic strength of the combatants. But how to present this in a lively and interesting way — battles are so much more engaging? Alan Bollard successfully…
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Review of “Not in Narrow Seas”
New Zealand Journal of International Affairs, November/December, Vol 46, No 6, p.28. Not in Narrow Seas makes an important contribution to the history of New Zealand centred on the economy. Brian Easton sees the economy as near the heart of any society for, as he argues, ‘it produces the goods and services that sustain the…
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Presentation to the Wellington South Rotary Club, November 4, 2020
‘Not in Narrow Seas’ identifies six hinges. This presentation focuses on whether we are at another hinge. Perhaps that is the last part of the book although the Covid Crisis occurred after the book went to the printer. We use its historical insights to understand the present.
Economics Column: New Zealand Herald, 19 Jume 2020. These are historic times we are living through, so there is illumination, and some comfort, to be derived from contemplating our history. A richly informative contribution to that is Brian Easton’s latest book Not in Narrow Seas: The Economic History of Aotearoa New Zealand . It is…
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’Not in Narrow Seas’, published by VUP, was released to bookshops in the week of May 23. Here are some web-based items on the book.
That William Soltau Davidson does not appear more prominently in our general histories reflects their neglect of the central role of farming.
An edited extract from Brian Easton’s new book ‘Not in Narrow Seas: The Economic History of Aotearoa New Zealand’.
Published in The VUP Home Reader 2020 p.131-143
To be published by Victoria University Press in May 2020 Here is the publisher’s announcement. Here is the publisher’s description of the author.
A Conversation with My Country by Alan Duff
Bob Scott Lecture Series on Inequality, 25 June 2019. (See also Have We Abandoned the Egalitarian Society?) What I want to do this evening is examine egalitarianism. In particular, New Zealand is a less egalitarian society today than it was when I was growing up in the 1950s. Why? How? The structure of the paper…
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A discussion on ‘Nights’ with Bryan Crump. 28 May, 2019 The audio is here. See also here.
Justin Gregory’s “Eyewitness” account of the 1996 Wool Price Shock used a lot of material from me. Here is the audio. I’ve republished the text (which is a little different in structure) to enable the search facility on the website to be used. If you’d asked them at the start of the year, most Kiwis…
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