Dr Felicity Barnes is a New Zealand historian with a particular interest in imperial connections and settler cultures. Her new book, New Zealand’s London: A Colony and its Metropolis, is published by Auckland University Press. It explores London’s role in New Zealand’s culture, from around the end of what we often think of as the colonial period – around the close of the nineteenth century – up until the 1980s. Ranging from the experience of World War One soldiers in the metropolis, to the strange (and strong) New Zealand affection for the Wombles, this book was described in the New Zealand Listener as ‘a model of cultural historical analysis.’

Related work on history of New Zealand’s efforts to sell butter, cheese, meat and apples to the British will soon be appearing as an essay in a new collection that captures the images and traces the rich history of New Zealand advertising, Promoting Prosperity.

She is now working on a wider project which will reconsider issues of culture and identity across the former white settler colonies of New Zealand, Australia, and Canada in the twentieth century.

Malcolm McKinnon is a Wellington historian. He taught in the history program at Victoria University from 1976 to 1990 and has retained associate status with it since then.
His principal publications are Independence and foreign policy: New Zealand in the world since 1935 (1993): Immigrants and citizens: New Zealanders and Asian immigration in historical context (1996); Treasury: a history of the New Zealand Treasury 1840-2000 (2003); and Asian cities: globalization, urbanization and nation-building (2011). He was general editor of the New Zealand historical atlas/Ko Papatuanuku e takoto nei (1997) and has been a theme editor and writer for Te Ara, the online encyclopedia of New Zealand, www.teara.govt.nz.
He is currently working on a book-length study of New Zealand’s experience of the depression of the 1930s, with a focus on politics and the economy.