The new book Secret History: State Surveillance in New Zealand, 1900-1956 by Richard S Hill and Steven Loveridge (Auckland University Press, 2023) opens up the ‘secret world’ of security intelligence during a period in which counter-espionage and counter-subversion duties were primarily handled...

Forced labour haunts the streets we walk today and the spaces we take for granted. From 1814 onwards, the unfree work of prisoners was used to forge roads, ports, buildings, harbour defences and other public works across New Zealand and its Pacific empire. Prisoners planted forests, cleared land...

In this month's Public History Talk, the authors of two recently published books discussed the profound impact of closed stranger adoption in New Zealand and the drive for change. Closed stranger adoption under the 1955 Adoption Act, still in force today, has deeply affected thousands of New...