THE OXFORD COMPANION TO NEW ZEALAND MILITARY HISTORY.

• Author: AYSON, ROBERT
• Position: Review

THE OXFORD COMPANION TO NEW ZEALAND MILITARY HISTORY Editor: Ian McGibbon with the assistance of Paul Goldstone Published by: Oxford University Press, Auckland, 2000, 653pp, $89.95.

From Abyssinia to the Z Special Unit, this is a marvellous volume. The more than 600 entries provide a comprehensive and highly rewarding account of the involvement of New Zealanders in conflict situations both at home (in the Musket Wars and the New Zealand Wars, for example) and abroad (from the Boer War to East Timor).

The Companion strikes a good balance between key events, capabilities and people, three vital categories. In terms of the first, the main conflicts and campaigns within them are dealt with in a series of digestible but nonetheless substantial chunks. Roberto Rabel, for example, provides an impressively wide-ranging account of the Vietnam War, which deals not only with New Zealand's participation in that controversial conflict but also with the public debate which the war spawned in this country. Jamie Belich's engaging treatment of the New Zealand Wars, at fourteen pages the longest single entry in the volume, takes the reader through each successive campaign from the Northern War of the mid-1840s to Te Kooti's war, which ended in 1872. Somewhere in between these two (at least chronologically) are the many campaigns of the First and Second World Wars in which New Zealanders participated. These entries include a detailed account of the Western Front from 1916 to 1918 (where New Zealand lost over 12,000 lives and came as close as it has to the centre of gravity of a major international conflict) and David McIntyre's splendid account of New Zealand's role in the Pacific War.

Of course such a volume would be incomplete without detailed entries on New Zealand's fighting forces, including key units and equipment, and here the Companion does not disappoint (and the general reader should expect to be informed rather than overwhelmed by the descriptions and data which are made available). A real highlight in this category comes in the shape of Brian Lockstone's impeccable entries on aircraft flown by the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Gavin McLean's corresponding entries on Royal New Zealand Navy platforms remind us that current equipment challenges and controversies have a long pedigree: his recounting of the navy's interest in acquiring `fast patrol boats for fisheries protection' a generation ago is interesting in light of the Labour-Alliance...