The Origins of an Experimental Society by Erik Olssen instant download

The Origins of an Experimental Society by Erik Olssen instant download

In this major work, one of our leading historians offers a new account of the origins of New Zealand: how Pakeha settlers – nurtured on Enlightenment thought and evangelical humanitarianism – encountered Maori, and how the two peoples together developed a distinctively experimental society.With James Cook' s arrival in 1769 and the subsequent colonisation, New Zealand became one of the few post-Enlightenment experiments in creating a new nation anywhere in the world. The Europeans who settled these islands brought with them a belief in the power of reason and experience to improve peoples and societies. Encounters between Maori and these new arrivals profoundly shaped the thoughts and behaviours of both peoples.Olssen argues that the people who settled New Zealand planned two experiments in making a better society. They hoped that, in contrast to earlier colonial projects, the indigenous New Zealanders would not be driven to extinction but eventually take their...