Landmarks

Professor Cumberland offers a unique perspective on New Zealand history: that of the land itself and the forces that have shaped it, natural and human. History is most often an account of people and rarely more than scratches the surface of its physical setting, but here unfolds the story of New Zealand itself - that is, the little group of islands we know by that name. Of course, as the book's subtitle makes clear, the story is a human one too, and so we are introduced to a multitude of interesting characters; determined, hardy men who remade the landscape into the familiar shapes and scenes of today.

Clearly written and beautifully presented with photographs, maps, diagrams and focus boxes, Landmarks is a compelling look at the development of modern New Zealand through a geographical eye.

Only the last chapter mars the experience by veering away from the book's main thrust. Forty years on, Cumberland's speculation about the future is mostly inaccurate and often irrelevant, but occasionally prescient, for example when he predicts and describes the Internet very much like we know it today. But even this largely unnecessary postscript fails to detract from an informative and interesting book that positively changed my own view of the land in which I was born and bred.