- NEW ZEALAND AUTHOR -
RON CROSBY
THE BOOKS
LATEST BOOK
Te Kooti's Last Foray
Published by: Oratia Books
8 August 2023 ISBN: 978-1-99-004234-8
240 x 160 mm portrait, 280 pages, b&w with 16 pages colour.
TE KOOTI’S LAST FORAY describes events in March 1870 when Te Kooti abducted 218 Whakatōhea people, and his pursuit by Whanganui and Ngāti Porou contingents solely under command of Māori officers.
Te Kooti’s supporters were defeated and dispersed and the 218 were rescued but Te Kooti escaped. Ironically, decades later many of the descendants of those abducted adopted Te Kooti’s Ringatū religion.
This is a book based on walking the ground, not solely on written records. Over many years Ron Crosby has tramped the Urewera forests to retrace the steps of Te Kooti and his pursuers. That legwork deeply informs Te Kooti’s Last Foray, and enables pinpoint location of where events took place — including Waipuna pā, a site largely forgotten for 150 years.
$50.00
If you are based outside of NZ and/or require overseas postage, please contact me directly at Roncrosby404@outlook.com to purchase the book.
The Forgotten Wars
Publisher: Oratia
ISBN:9780947506797
Date Published: 14 October 2020
Format:Paperback
Muskets, potatoes and other introductions fundamentally altered the balance of power in 19th-century Aotearoa, leading to inter-iwi conflicts over almost 40 years that claimed tens of thousands of lives (killing, wounding or displacing up to half of the Māori population).
This important book will further understanding of how the boom of muskets continues to echo in New Zealand today. And it needs to — the wars are still neglected by government and glossed over by other histories. The Forgotten Wars ensures these epic conflicts will be remembered.
This book is well illustrated with clear maps, teaching activities and 208 pages.
NZ$40.00
If you are based outside of NZ and/or require overseas postage, please contact me directly at Roncrosby404@outlook.com to purchase the book.
Kupapa
ISBN: 978-0-14-357311-1
Published by Penguin Random House
Kupapa has been variously defined as being neutral (in a quarrel), being loyal, being an ally or being a traitor, the word itself has come to be as hotly contested as its history. The Treaty of Waitangi struck a bargain between two parties - the Crown and Maori. Its promises of security, however, were followed from 1845 to 1872 by a series of volaile and bloody conflicts commonly known as the New Zealand Wars.
Many people believe that these wars were fought solely between the Crown and Maori, when the reality is Maori aligned with both sides, resulting in three participants from differing viewpoints. It is rarely recognised, for instance, that Te Wherowhero, later the first Maori King, was originally a strong supporter of the Crown, or that the numbers of Maori who aligned with the Crown or were neutral probably exceeded those who fought against it. Or that the frontline combat over the final two years was fought almost exclusively between opposing Maori forces. Kupapa is an important work that gives voice to an unspoken chapter of Maori history.
This book is well illustrated with 13 clear maps and 510 pages.
NZ$65.00
If you are based outside of NZ and/or require overseas postage, please contact me directly at Roncrosby404@outlook.com to purchase the book.
A Desperate Dawn - The Battle for Turuturu Mokai 1868
ISBN: 978-0-473-22490-5
In July 1868 South Taranaki chief Titokowaru indicated his toughening attitude toward European settlement in his territory by attacking the small military redoubt at Turuturu Mokai. That battle led to a campaign where Maori and Pakeha fought some of the most desperate and violent battles of the New Zealand wars. This book puts that battle into a social, political, technological and historical context. With a strong visual element throughout, the pages are eminently engaging for a wide range of readers.
NZ$20.00
If you are based outside of NZ and/or require overseas postage, please contact me directly at Roncrosby404@outlook.com to purchase the book.
NZSAS - The First Fifty Years
ISBN-10: 0143203436
ISBN-13: 978-0143203438
NZSAS: The First Fifty Years is the first and only official history of New Zealand's elite Special Forces, the New Zealand Special Air Service (NZSAS).
From their first ever engagements in the jungles of Malaya in 1956, through to the Vietnam War and on to modern conflicts in East Timor and Afghanistan, this book traces the history and development of 1 NZSAS Group. Illustrated with maps and never-before-seen photographs, the book provides a rare and fascinating insight into the clandestine world of the NZSAS.
Since the best-selling biography Willie Apiata, VC: The Reluctant Hero was published by Penguin last year, public interest in the NZSAS has skyrocketed.
NOTE: A limited reprint is available. If you would like to purchase NZSAS: The First Fifty Years, please contact the NZSAS Trust directly.
email: admin@nzsastrust.org.nz
Andris Apse
ISBN-13 SP79001100X
ISBN-10 79001100X
One of New Zealand’s leading landscape photographers Andris Apse came to New Zealand as a child as a Latvian refugee together with his mother Kamilla who believed his father Voldemars had been killed in the war. 46 years later after Latvia gained its freedom from Russian occupation in 1990 it was found that Voldemars was still alive in Latvia. Through diaries and correspondence retained by Kamilla and translated by her and other Latvians in New Zealand decades later the book recounts the family’s desperately sad tales of the war years, the lives of the two separated families, and their final reunion meeting.
NZ$55.00
If you are based outside of NZ and/or require overseas postage, please contact me directly at Roncrosby404@outlook.com to purchase the book.
Albaneta - Lost Opportunity at Cassino
ISBN-10: 0790011298
ISBN-13: 978-0790011295
This 172 page book, with two colour sections, many maps and contemporary photographs, relates the tale of a little known attack in Italy during World War 2 by 15 Kiwi tanks of C Squadron, 20th Armoured Regiment. The men of this South Island squadron achieved initial success beyond expectations in the mountains behind the Monastery at Cassino. The book recounts that success at Albaneta, and the causes of a sadly wasted opportunity which had the potential to avoid many of the later infantry losses below the Monastery in the township of Cassino.
NZ$45.00
If you are based outside of NZ and/or require overseas postage, please contact me directly at Roncrosby404@outlook.com to purchase the book.
Gilbert Mair - Te Kooti's Nemesis
ISBN-10: 0790009692
ISBN-13: 978-0790009698
A biography of one of New Zealand’s most colourful colonial era frontier characters who won fame as a soldier with his pursuit of Te Kooti in the Urewera together with his Te Arawa Flying Column. He went on to forge a somewhat unique position in Maoridom being appointed the first Superintendent of the Maori Councils. He gathered a valuable collection of taonga and their histories now part of the Ko Tawa travelling Exhibition of that name by the Auckland Museum. He played a major role as an interpreter and Crown agent in the land acquisition process by the Crown from Maori through the Native Land Court in his earlier years, and came to bitterly regret the outcome for Maori of that process.
NZ$55.00
If you are based outside of NZ and/0r require overseas postage, please contact me directly at Roncrosby404@outlook.com to purchase the book.
The Musket Wars -
A History of Inter-Iwi Conflict 1806-45
ISBN-10: 0790007975
ISBN-13: 978-0790007977
Hailed on its publication as among the most important works of New Zealand history of the twentieth century, The Musket Wars sold out of its hardback print-run and is now issued in a paperback edition.
The Musket Wars records in graphic detail how the arrival of the musket and new food sources led to a wave of conflicts that engulfed most parts of New Zealand between 1806 and 1845, leaving tens of thousands of Maori killed, wounded or displaced. Entire districts were depopulated and tribal boundaries were redrawn. Yet to the victors went the spoils: the Treaty of Waitangi acknowledged tribal boundaries as they existed in 1840. The wars thus have ongoing relevance to the entire Waitangi Tribunal process, a fact that has not been sufficiently addressed by most claims. Ron Crosby has written an accurate and complete historical account that also brings to life the human drama of these brutal and unremitting wars.
New to this paperback edition is a list of information sources relating to particular iwi. This is the first comprehensive history of the Musket Wars. The paperback edition includes new list of sources relating to iwi.
There are 43 maps of campaigns (six in colour), and over 80 reproductions (many in colour) of battle scenes, leading participants, and period landscapes.
NZ$65.00
If you are based outside of NZ and/or require overseas postage, please contact me directly at Roncrosby404@outlook.com to purchase the book.