cover. The help to their own meagre stock of ammunition must have been considerable, for the Rev. Taylor records that one such sortie netted them 63 musket balls and 4 lbs of powder. Throughout the book, the author describes missionary influence as a great civilizing force. The missionaries were forthright in their condemnation of unscrupulous land deals. They fought a constant battle to enforce the letter of the Treaty. They moderated in inter-tribal disputes and influenced to no small degree the breaking down of lingering pockets of resistance. But there were those among them who were not above testing Maori action against their own interests in the name of Chrisitian duty. Grey's exhortation to Maori claimants to give up the Hutt land to European settlers found gratifying support when the Rev. Taylor obtusely took for his text a chapter from Timothy, which reminded Christians of their duty to yield to governors. It was unfortunate that the Maori was to get such early initiation into European double standards. He had not yet become familiar with nominal Christianity. On the same Christmas Day when a service brought 382 Maoris from a population of 2,000 to receive communion, a similar service in the township for 400 troops and settlers attracted 20. It could not have escaped Maori notice that Europeans appeared to take to heart the maxim ‘the better the day, the better the deed’. Dates in the author's documentation reveal that from the North to the Hutt Valley, Sunday was the auspicious day for launching a military offensive. It was also the preferred day for stockade building in Wanganui. Maori Christians must have found this difficult to reconcile with keeping holy the sabbath. Two incidents of plundering and destruction which occurred during the period under review are interesting for their treatment of Christian property. One, the sacking of Kororareka by Hone Heke is known to every schoolboy as a fact of New Zealand history. The other may have escaped publication altogether except in this book. A detachment of British soldiers attacked the unoccupied Ngati Rangatahi pa in the Hutt Valley, and after plundering the homes, set fire to the pa. There was a significant difference in the two operations. At Kororareka the only building left standing and unviolated was the church; in the Hutt Valley, the Maori chapel was desecrated and destroyed in the general conflagration. There is so much in this book that draws new significance from a re-appraisal of evidence that the reader finds himself with exciting, new concepts of early New Zealand history. It is a provocative book. Events and personalities that have hitherto intrigued the student of early New Zealand history because they lacked a comprehensible Maori association with reality are shuffled more satisfactorily into perspective. Fitzroy, Busby, Hobson, Te Rauparaha, Hone Heke, Te Rangihaeata, Te Wherowhero, Waka Nene, Te Heuheu, Te Mamaku, Wakefield, Grey, the missionaries, the military commanders, the land arbitrators, all come into the sweep of the author's microscope and gain or lose brilliance in doing so. It dwells longest and most searchingly on Governor Grey, that complex and gifted man, egotist, able governor, superb politician, arch dissimulator, self-professed friend of the Maori, yet to quote from the book, who ‘lied on so many occasions concerning his land purchases that no completely satisfactory account of these yet exists’. It is a considerable volume of almost 400 pages, well documented by clearly numbered foot-notes and possessing an excellent index arrangement at the end. Illustrations and maps are thoughtfully chosen or prepared and add considerably to the interest of the book. It is a scholarly presentation and aptness and clarity of expression contribute greatly to its readability. It would be exciting to read this author's assessment of the decade preceding the period under review and the years that followed when the wave of disillusionment swept the conflict to new heights in Taranaki and the Waikato. This is a valuable and rewarding book for the young Maori to read. Cause and effect of the conflicts have cast long shadows. It is not difficult to date the time, almost 100 years after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, when the Maori was beginning to emerge from his second class citizenship to political parity with his European neighbour. Nor has Nopera's shadow of the land gained in substance or lost any of its sombreness with the passing of more than a century.