Author(s): Christopher Hilliard

History

The Bookmen's Dominion recovers an almost forgotten chapter in New Zealand's ongoing conversation about itself. It is often assumed that the study of New Zealand history and literature began relatively recently. But, as early as the 1920s, people with backgrounds in journalism, or library work, or professions such as the law were debating the details and the wider significance of the Treaty of Waitangi and the New Zealand Wars, and arguing about the claims of modernism and nationhood in New Zealand poetry. From the 1930s, these scholars and critics