Publisher's Synopsis
W.H. Oliver, a central figure in New Zealand's intellectual landscape, reflects here on the decades of his own life, and the history that has shaped him.;A portrait of his Cornish parents is full of quiet detail about the impact of migration, about rural work, unemployment and Labour activism, and about the significance of education to these 'people of the word'.;The book then follows the 'ebbs and flows' of New Zealand's intellectual hisory, as Bill Oliver encountered, contributed to, and challenged the formative ideas of his time. The emerging focus on this country's past, mid-century, leads to an engagement with Maori history, and on to the recent challenges of the post-modern post-colonial era.
