Garry's Blog

Heritage Matters have published a short article of mine - a much shortened version of the on-line paper. Garry Law 2008 “The Great White Fleet in Auckland” Heritage Matters Issue 17:38-9.

More scientific illiteracy at TVNZ. Last night they had the Hubble telescope seeing planets around a star in another galaxy . Oh dear - we will be waiting a while for that one to be true. It was of course another solar system. It's 25 light years away. The closest galaxy is a dwarf companion to our own and it is 42,000 light years away. The BBC got it right. BBC story

The Awa Book of New Zealand Science. Edited Rebecca Priestley, 2008, The Awa Press. What a great book – extracts from papers and writing about science from through our history, embellished by some relevant pieces of our poetry. Of course much of the material is largely of local interest – the pieces by the likes Cockayne, Cotton, Guthrie-Smith will resonate with New Zealanders but less for people away from here. They are well chosen – Priestley has a good eye for what is readable as well as significant. For archaeologists the pieces by Rafter and Adds connect us to the bigger picture. It is the bringing together here of the international contributions that is not often done. If one puts together the pieces by Rutherford and Marsden on the discovery of the atom’s nucleus, Tinsley on the nature of the universe, Wilkins on DNA, and Alan Wilson (with Rebecca Cann) on our recent African Genesis this is an astonishing contribution to knowledge of the fundamentals of our world and ourselves.

Bookhabit - Abundance and Constraint: A Short History of Water Use in New Zealand New Zealand has an abundance of water but still there has been conflict over its use. Maori managed water and asserted their right to its use particularly for fishing. Colonists soon came into conflict with Maori over water, disrupting traditional fishing through rafting logs, introducing new species and using waterways for wastes. Water was an important early source of power in colonial New Zealand used for milling a variety of products and in hydraulic mining. Gold mining was intimately connected to early hydroelectric development, a use which came to have the most profound effects on New Zealand's waterways. The Law followed the different forms of use of water as they developed. Through mining contamination many rivers were declared sludge canals and their banks taken into Crown ownership - the Queens Chain - to prevent court actions by the adjoining owners. Wetlands have been much affected by deve

NEW publication: Archaeology of the Bay of Plenty By Garry Law. 149 p. What's it about? This report summarises the state of knowledge of the archaeology of the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, and reviews research themes and priorities of the past and for the future. The Bay of Plenty is favoured as a place to live today, but this has not always been the case. Its first settlement by Maori seems to have been sparse, whereas there are numerous sites from the later pre-European occupation period. The early economy was based around the marine resources and soils, which were well suited to cultivation of kumara. The first European visitors took relatively little interest in the region as it generally lacked the gold and accessible timber resources that drove early growth elsewhere, and cobalt-deficient soils made pastoral farming unattractive in much of the area. The development of improved transport resulted in greater growth, and pastoral farming increased as the lowlands and swamps were

Bookhabit - Auckland, August 1908: A Stop on the Great White Fleet World Cruise By Garry Law eBook - published 2008. This booklet places the visit of the Great White Fleet to Auckland in its New Zealand context and its geopolitical context - that of great power rivalry over prestige, territorial ambitions and projection of force by battleship lead fleets. It shows the social context of Auckland 100 years ago. Illustrated with contemporary pictures, many drawn from colour printed post cards. 37 pages. The first chapter is free - there is a small charge for downloading the whole book.

Description de l'Egypte NYPL Digital Gallery

Nina Burleigh 2007 Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt. Harper Collins New York. A popular and very readable account of the 1798 adventure by Napoleon to deny Egypt to the British. Hundreds of scholars and students accompanied the expeditions and were feted but eventually abandoned by Napoleon. Denon wrote an account of travels in upper and lower Egypt which was rapidly translated into English but the main output was the massive Description of Egypt published in several parts, initially under the authority of Napoleon, but after he was deposed under that of the restored monarch - this despite many of the scholars being treated abominably under the new regime. The book was one foundation of the incorporation of ancient Egyptian design elements into Empire Style. The Taschen edition (1990) is probably the most accessible, but it is also online. Along with many of the army, a sizeable proportion of the scholars were never to leave Egypt, dying there, many of the plague.

Hamish Keith 2007 The Big Picture. A History of New Zealand Art from 1642. Random House, Auckland. Hamish Keith has for long been claiming to have personally caused a revolution in the perception and handling of Maori art. His latest: The two cultures might not yet have come together, but they were now at least standing on the banks of the same contemporary river. It would be another twenty years before the Te Maori exhibition would restore to Maori art the same history, value and context that pioneer art historians had given to contemporary Pakeha artists. The 1984 Te Maori exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York was a powerful watershed, not in the making of Maori art, but in the public perception of it. Te Maori launched the great treasures of Maori art into the modern world in the context of one of the world's great art museums. Its organisers intentions were subversive ... to lift the shroud of the fictitious past that New Zealand's natural history museu