Author(s): Stephen I. Levine

NZ History

In 2006 NEW ZEALAND AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN introduced a new way of looking at New Zealand's national experience - its history, society and politics, even its rugby - as 15 authors considered what could have been rather than simply what was. Now this new book offers a further 17 portraits of 'New Zealand as it might have been' - a mix of short stories and commentaries, some whimsical, others grim, each offering a perceptive and plausible new slant on significant events and personalities. NEW ZEALAND AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 2 extends the range of 'what if' scenarios to include literary figures - among them New Zealand's most famous writer, Katherine Mansfield - as well as the country's internationally respected national hero, Sir Edmund Hillary, examining moments in their lives when, with only a modest degree of adjustment, things could well have taken an entirely different turn. Political and military events also feature, with New Zealand's fate under German rule after the First World War, and under Nazi occupation during the Second, challenging reminders of the country's insecure position in a world at war.
Other chapters revisit the meaning of ANZAC Day, the possible effects of a postwar visit by Winston Churchill, and New Zealand's avoidable choice to fight alongside the Americans in Vietnam. From Hone Heke's 19th-century challenge to British sovereignty through to the enactment of women's suffrage - from The Moyle Affair to the foreshore-and-seabed dispute, and on to John Key's decision to hold a new referendum on MMP in 2011 - this second volume of 'alternative history', NEW ZEALAND AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 2, offers a variety of visions of a country that nearly was: 17 possible pasts, leading to 17 unique and different New Zealands.