Review of Chris Wilkes, Reinventing Capitalism in New Zealand, Cambridge Scholars, Newcastle, 2019.

is a journalist who wants to tell a story about 'inequality' more accessible to a wider public than most academic debates about the subject, which are often so bestrewn with jargon and complex statistics that only the initiated can participate.He also might have pointed to the prevalent tendency within the popular media not to provide sufficient depth or clarity on complex social issues to enable readers to grasp the intricacies of what is being written about.Add in very large doses of, often disguised, political and moral bias and the possibilities for rigorous and balanced assessment become even more remote.Despite these obstacles, this book mainly succeeds in achieving its aims by providing generally clear and readable commentaries on inequality by authors who explicitly state their own values, policy advocacy and political perspectives.A diversity of perceptions is therefore inevitable, as Rashbrook notes in the Preface.Nonetheless, what unifies the wide range of opinions displayed in the chapters that follow, by commentators from within and beyond academia, is a shared aspiration to provide a compelling case for accepting that income inequalities in New Zealand have reached a point where detailed examination, explanation and remedial action are essential.Yet calling the current situation in New Zealand a crisis is debatable.Have we reached a 'tipping point' (2) where Kiwis' oft noted traditions of equality and fairness are perceived as in such poor repair that they should do something about it?Admittedly, my scepticism is unfairly compounded by writing this review well after Inequality hit the shelves, at a time when a centre right administration was very recently, and resoundingly, returned to the Beehive.This government, while having child poverty and housing disparities, for example, on its agenda, is unlikely to share many of the views proffered in this text.But whether voter preferences should be taken as reflecting delusion or disavowal of a calamitous defining moment is hard to fathom.In his opening chapters the editor sets the scene by outlining why he thinks inequality should matter to all New Zealanders, including the well-heeled.He also has a good stab at demystifying the statistics that inevitably confront anyone trying to decide how to define and measure income disparities in relative fashion. 1 Cogent arguments are advanced about why we should all be concerned about inequality per se, not just poverty.Endorsing the influential comparative research on inequality by the authors of The Spirit Level, 2 Rashbrook stresses that only focusing on the widening gulf between the breath-taking salaries earned by a handful of corporate executives and the marginalised existence of those at the bottom of the heap, detracts from the point that excessive income (and wealth) differences negatively affect the health, security and well-being of everyone; not least because of their impacts on the overall economic performance of societies.His views are generally ably backed up in subsequent chapters.In a well-argued essay, Robert Wade shows how New Zealand income disparities mirror those in most Western societies, although its recent historical shift from one of the least to most unequal states in the OECD is distinctive.His expansive comparative survey, reminiscent in some ways of the arguments presented in Thomas Piketty's more recent book on wealth distribution, 3 neatly demolishes the neo-liberal illusion that equality and democracy are best accomplished with a minimum of market constraints.Yet, for Wade, shifts in this direction over recent decades fortified rather than created a longstanding plutocracy in Western capitalism, with New Zealand being no exception.This, of course, raises fundamental questions about the relative weight to

Drawing on a qualitative interview-based study of English migrants in New Zealand, this article examines, if and how, overseas migration triggers national sentiments that were previously relatively amorphous in their country of origin. In those cases where this occurs, it analyses the diverse and contextual orientations migrants display, and discusses the empirical and analytic challenges posed when seeking to conceptualise a category of persons that have been described as ‘ambiguous immigrants’. The study concludes that research on this ambiguity contributes to debates about the relationship between dominant ethnicity and national identity while highlighting the simplicities of many concepts used to describe and analyse ‘the English’.

American AnthropologistVolume 116, Issue 3 p. 689-690 BOOK REVIEWS National Days and the Politics of Indigenous and Local Identities in Australia and New Zealand by Patrick A. McAllister. , Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2012. 244 pp. David Pearson, David Pearson Victoria University of WellingtonSearch for more papers by this author David Pearson, David Pearson Victoria University of WellingtonSearch for more papers by this author First published: 26 August 2014 https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12136_16Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume116, Issue3September 2014Pages 689-690 RelatedInformation

There has been very little research on English migrants in New Zealand, especially over the last few decades, and even less attention to their class perceptions. Drawing upon in-depth interview data, this article makes a contribution to both research lacunae. It outlines some key background issues relating to class and national narratives, within and between England and New Zealand, and describes the research design of this study. It then draws on selected migrant accounts to illustrate the views of English persons on class relations, or the lack of them, in their countries of origin and destination, and the changes, if any, they discern in both contexts since settling in New Zealand. Finally, it analyses the links between the life trajectories of different categories of migrants and, if and how, their sentiments about social hierarchy relate to what has been called a 'culture of decline' in England; and to what extent a comparable phenomenon might be observable locally.

Review(s) of: Honouring the contract, by John E. Martin (2010), Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2010, 296pp; Replenishing the earth: The settler revolution and the rise of the Anglo-world, 1783-1939, by James Belich (2009), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, 573pp.

English national identities are frequently viewed as becoming problematic since the major transformations in the relations between the nations within and beyond Britain. Recent research suggests forms of national attachment and detachment have different degrees of salience among ordinary people in England than within elite circles. This article explores and extends this assertion through the qualitative study of the accounts of English migrants in New Zealand. Research findings confirm that the presence or absence of national identifications are closely related to everyday lives but show how experiences of migration are translated into sentiments in distinctive and diverse ways.

Arguing for the merits of an antipodean perspective that embraces the linked historical and current relations between Tasman, British and other worlds, this paper focuses on the majoritarian responses of those of English ancestry in Britain and within the British diaspora to wide ranging changes that potentially challenge their national supremacy in both contexts. After briefly assessing some of the approaches to exploring the identities of the 'English/British' separately in Australia and New Zealand, some suggestions are made about how majoritarian narratives are best reframed, conceptually and methodologically, both within the antipodes and the broader contexts within which they have always been placed. The adoption of an antipodean perspective is deemed necessary in order to understand how changes in majority status and shifts in national identity are mutually constituted within and across the above worlds.

This article, drawing on Peter Beilharz’s account of Bernard Smith’s conception of the Antipodes, argues for the utility of using the connections between Australia and New Zealand as a means of exploring aspects of settler state and national relations within a local, meso-regional and global perspective. The historical development of British imperial and settler state citizenship provides the setting for demonstrating how an Antipodean viewpoint could be pursued. Emphasis is placed on the creation and reproduction of aboriginal and immigrant minorities, the establishment of strategic cross-Tasman regional relations, and shifts in the reconstruction of majority ethnic and national imaginings.

"Book Review: Siobhan Harty and Michael Murphy, In Defence of Multinational Citizenship (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005), pp. 206, paper $85.00.." Political Science, 57(2), pp. 127–128

Journal Article James Belich. Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders; From the 1880s to the Year 2000. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 2001. Pp. 606. $40.00 Get access Belich James. Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders; From the 1880s to the Year 2000. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 2001. Pp. 606. $40.00. David Pearson David Pearson Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 108, Issue 2, April 2003, Pages 504–505, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/108.2.504 Published: 01 April 2003

By the turn of the nineteenth century local elites within the colonies of settlement had achieved ascendancy in statist terms. Politically, the process of colonisation had dispossessed indigenous peoples, leaving them, at best, as minority players in the state arena. Mass settlement of British migrants had cemented in place the governmental, judicial, militarist and educative institutions that produced and reproduced political rule, surveillance and, ultimately, at least for many settlers and their descendants, legitimate violence. But what were the borders of legitimacy, and how effectively could they be patrolled?

Anne Salmond. Between Worlds: Early Exchanges between Maori and Europeans, 1773–1815. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 1997. Pp. 590. $45.00 Get access Salmond Anne. Between Worlds: Early Exchanges between Maori and Europeans, 1773–1815. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 1997. Pp. 590. $45.00. David Pearson David Pearson Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 104, Issue 1, February 1999, Pages 153–154, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/104.1.153 Published: 01 February 1999

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