From Emergency To Confrontation: the New Zealand Armed Forces in Malaya and Borneo 1949-66.

• Author: Grey, Jeffrey
• Position: Book Review

Author: Christopher Pugsley Published by: Oxford University Press, Auckland, 2003, 528pp, $69.95.

In common with a number of the other Dominions, New Zealand came to the modern official history only after the Second World War (although one could argue that the monumental series produced under the editorship of Major-General Sir Howard Kippenberger more than made up for the late start). The official histories of that war produced in the United States and the Commonwealth represent a massive investment in public history (although that term would not then have been used), while their writing contributed in significant ways to the identification, organisation and preservation of the written records of the war, both Allied and Axis. More often referred to than read, they remain the essential foundation for much of the non-official historical writing on the subject.

The programmes that dealt with subsequent conflicts enjoy a less assured and certain status. This arises partly because the wars of the Cold War era lent themselves less easily to the genre (the official histories of the two world wars deal heavily with military operations and much less with politics, national strategy and diplomacy, while the Cold War commitments made by Australia and New Zealand cannot be understood without extensive knowledge of those factors). In the nuclear age history perhaps appeared to have less relevance for national militaries (a flawed viewpoint, but one given a new lease on life more recently by some of the more uncritical advocates of the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs); it is noticeable that these post-1945 series were often smaller than their forebears, took longer to be commissioned and published, and in some cases were markedly inadequate when they did appear. Finally, official history as a genre was coming under question, even suspicion, and this undermined the authority that it had formerly possessed and affected the reception afforded individual series, even individual volumes.

In the 1980s Australia and New Zealand both undertook official histories of their commitment to postwar conflicts in South-east Asia, and neither series is yet completed. The histories areas long as ever, and take as long to write, but now conform to expectations governing scholarly standards, annotations and referencing. Authorship has also changed. Kippenberger had served with distinction as a senior officer until wounds forced his invalidity; Gavin Long had...