DICTIONARY OF NEW ZEALAND BIOGRAPHY Volume 5: 1941-1960.

• Author: MCKINNON, MALCOLM
• Position: Review

DICTIONARY OF NEW ZEALAND BIOGRAPHY Volume 5:1941-1960 General Editor: Claudia Orange Published by: Auckland University Press/Department of Internal Affairs, Auckland, 2000, 679pp, $110.

It was great to see Volume 5 of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography hit the decks in 2000. It brings to a close a project that launched with Volume 1 (1769-1869) in 1990. The plaudits for the general editor and her staff have come thick and fast, and anyone dipping into volume 5, as its predecessors, will readily see why: the inclusion of many women who might not have made it according to traditional criteria; the presence of the less conventional -- brothel keepers, recluses -- along with the more; the wide geographical range of Maori subjects. One tradition is well kept: alphabetical order which, as in an ordinary dictionary, leads to such fruitful distraction. Who is going to persevere with Harry Hopkins -- `civil engineer, university professor' -- when next beckons George Cecil Horry -- `criminal, confidence trickster, tailor, convicted murderer'? (The list of occupations that opens each entry, and the sequence in which they are placed, provide entertaining narratives of their own.)

When we come to consider the world of external relations presented by the volume, it would be all too easy to meander through the entries, noting who was `in' and who was `out'. But quite apart from the fact that choices must always be made, it is not a very useful approach for a volume covering a period of only twenty years, so close to the present. Important figures in the history of external relations in these years, notably Peter Fraser and Walter Nash, appeared in Volume 4. Other equally important people are still alive, and therefore ineligible for inclusion (paraphrasing Groucho Marx, `I don't want to be listed in a dictionary that will take me').

So this reviewer embarked on a different exercise. Biography implies history, but what are the connections? The years 1940-60 saw New Zealand take responsibility for its own external relations, rather than rely on Great Britain. The start date could perhaps be put back a bit -- 1935 is often instanced -- but the fit is close enough. And the papers in New Zealand's External Relations -- the proceedings of a conference held in1961 -- both 0 summed up the changes of the preceding two decades and told of new orthodoxies.

A perusal of the volume 5 entries suggests somewhat over forty individuals significant in this transformation. There are the politicians -- Sid Holland, Keith Holyoake and Jack Marshall -- and the public servants -- Dick Campbell, Jack Hunn, Henry Lang, Alister McIntosh, Foss Shanahan and J.V. Wilson. There are dissenting figures such as A.C. Barrington, Bert Roth and Roy Parsons, and left wingers such as Alex Drennan and Vic Wilcox. And then others less easy to categorise, such as Leslie Munro and...