New Zealand was the last major landmass, other than Antarctica, to be settled by humans. The story of this rugged and dynamic land is beautifully narrated, from its origins in Gondwana some 80 million years ago to the twenty-first century. Philippa Mein Smith highlights the effects of the country's smallness and isolation, from its late settlement by Polynesian voyagers and colonisation by Europeans - and the exchanges that made these people Maori and Pakeha - to the dramatic struggles over land and recent efforts to manage global forces. A Concise History of New Zealand places New Zealand in its global and regional context. It unravels key moments - the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the Anzac landing at Gallipoli, the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior - showing their role as nation-building myths and connecting them with the less dramatic forces, economic and social, that have shaped contemporary New Zealand.

This book is about infant mortality decline, the rise of the infant welfare movement, outcomes in terms of changing priorities in child health and what happened to mothers and babies. Infant welfare raised public awareness but did not contribute as powerfully to improved infant survival - and so longer life - as protagonists claimed. This work shows what it meant for reformers, babies and mothers when the call was 'population is power: the nation that has the babies has the future'.