Te Rauparaha - A New Perspective

Penguin Books. This copy is a bit scruffy. Chipped at top of spine and heavy fading to covers.

Sir Apirana Ngata once asked the rhetorical question: `Was Te Rauparaha the sinister, treacherous savage whom historians of the Wairau Massacre have made him out to be?' Were Ngata alive today he would, surely, give the nod of approval to the unbiased, sympathetic, indeed sensitive portrayal of Te Rauparaha in this book. Te Rauparaha lived in a turbulent age and did, in fact, add to the turbulence that at times was shattering and traumatic for both races. There was more than a touch of the miraculous about the man; so formidable a warrior was he and so skilled in military strategem, that he earned the sobriquet `the Maori Napoleon.' But this is not so much a book about his military excursions, rather it is a record of the interplay of the social, cultural, political, and religious influences and resulting confusions of the times, skilfully drawn to fill out the story of Te Rauparaha in predominantly human terms. In the process Burns has stripped away many of the myths, stereotypes and inconsistencies perpetuated by both Pakeha and Maori alike.