Age of Enterprise: Rediscovering the New Zealand Entrepreneur, 1880-1910

Auckland University Press, 2007. Good second-hand condition.

This book, which covers an area little touched by traditional historians such as Sinclair, Belich or King, shows how entrepreneurship and innovation transformed the New Zealand economy in the late nineteenth century. In particular it draws on case studies and historical evidence to reveal that the small, organic, rapidly expanding firm was the potent force in New Zealand's growth - the local small-time entrepreneur is the hero of this story. By focusing on the shape of our economic history Ian Hunter here fills a major gap in our knowledge of the colonial period which has derived largely from the work of social and political historians.