Books published by Otago University Press

David Eggleton, Poet Laureate of Aotearoa 2019-21, has published nine poetry collections, and now, finally, comes a 'Best Of '. The Wilder Years: Selected Poems is a hardback compendium of the poet's own selection from 35 years of published work, together with a handful of new po...ems.
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Common Ground: Garden histories of Aotearoa takes a loving look at gardens and garden practices in Aotearoa New Zealand over time. While a lot of gardening books focus on the grand plantings of wealthy citizens, Matt Morris explores the historical processes behind 'humble gardens...' - those created and maintained by ordinary people. From the arrival of the earliest Polynesian settlers carrying precious seeds and cuttings, through early settler gardens to 'Dig for Victory' efforts, he traces the collapse and renewal of home gardening culture, through the emergence of community initiatives to the recent concept of food sovereignty. Compost, Maori gardens, the suburban vege patch, the rise of soil toxin levels, the role of native plants and City Beautiful movements ... Morris looks at the ways in which cultural meanings have been inscribed in the land through our gardening practices over time. What do our gardens say about us, and where we have been? Matt Morris digs deep in Common Ground.
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Strong Words #2 showcases the long-listed entries for the 2019 and 2020 Landfall essay competitions.

"This is a story of how ordinary people created a movement that changed New Zealand's foreign policy and our identity as a nation. The story of peace activism from our pre-recorded history to 1975 was told in Peace People: A history of peace activities in New Zealand (1992) by El...sie Locke. In this new book her daughter Maire Leadbeater takes the story up to the 1990s in an account of the dramatic stories of the colourful and courageous activist campaigns that led the New Zealand government to enact nuclear-free legislation in 1987. Politicians took the credit, but they were responding to a powerful groundswell of public opinion. In this country nuclear disarmament has become part of our communal psyche to a greater extent than in any other western-aligned nation, but when politicians choose pragmatism over principle in foreign policy, peace and justice suffer. Peace activism is an ongoing story"--Publisher information.
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In the past two decades, cuisine and culinary history have attracted increasing attention, with both popular and academic books reflecting the growth of interest. Recipes are both sensitive markers of the socioeconomic conditions of their times and written representations of a cu...lture's culinary repertoire yet, despite the vast number of cookbooks that survive, they have not been the primary focus of research projects. Acknowledgement of their potential contribution to our understanding of culinary history has been slow. This book is a first in its field. The book opens with the three Macmillan Brown Lectures given by Helen Leach at Canterbury University in 2008 and broadcast on National Radio in 2009. The second part is comprised of essays by a number of contributors from a major research project that looked at Kiwi cookbooks, supported by the Marsden Fund. The essays explore several themes in New Zealand's food history, including the adaptation of British and Maori culinary traditions in the nineteenth century and the fate of the Maori tradition in the twentieth, external influences on New Zealand cookery (previously thought to be predominantly British until after World War II), the transmission of cookery knowledge between and within generations, the impact of changing technology on cooking methods and recipes, nutritional advice in community cookbooks, and the transition from modernism to postmodernism, as seen in the cookbooks of Aunt Daisy and Lois Daish. This book will entertain anyone interested in food, New Zealand history or domestic culture. Contents Preface PART I: The Macmillan Brown Lectures, 2008 1 Maori Cookery before Cook Helen M. Leach 2 Cookery in the Colonial Era (1769-1899) Helen M. Leach 3 Culinary Traditions in Twentieth-Century New Zealand Helen M. Leach / PART II: Cookbooks and Culinary History in New Zealand 4 Changing Kitchen Technology F. Jane Teal 5 The Uptake of Nutritional Advice Janet Mitchell 6 Putting Fish Back on the Menu Duncan Ga
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