The History Makers - Vaughn Yarwood
With a little extra time on my hands while Elise and I recover from Covid, I've been able to get through this 10 person biography about prominent New Zealanders - or at very least, people with some connection to New Zealand. I say prominent, but there were a few individuals covered in this work that I had never heard of, and that is coming from a New Zealander with an interest in history. Not a full-on passion I guess. I mean, if I was full-on passionate about history I'm sure I would have heard of these people before, right?
What makes this different from a regular biography is that the majority of the chapters were originally written as New Zealand Geographic articles. This results in an unusual feel; each chapter tells us the story of the individual in question (or at least part of it) while also describing the journey of the author to whichever area of the country (or in Hillary's case, Nepal) he has connected with that individual. We also get thorough descriptions of those areas, which makes sense for a magazine entitled 'Geographic', but could take the reader by surprise if they were not expecting it.
Overall, this was a decent book. Easy to read, informative and interesting. I could stop there, but I thought it'd be fun to comment briefly on the impression given for each of the individuals mentioned in the book, based on Yarwood's chapters.
George Grey - Smarter and more understanding than we give him credit for; sometimes unfairly demonised by modern historians. One of the better early NZ premiers, who also had an expansive library (so extra points from me).
Joan Wiffen - I feel like I didn't learn a lot about Joan herself, but neat to read about the amateur archaeologists uncovering NZ dinosaurs.
Sir Edmund Hillary - Sir Ed is the best. Everything I read about him shows that. Another chapter that tells us less about Hillary (whom most Kiwis will know something about) and more about the work he had been doing in Nepal (which is also newsworthy).
Jean Batten - Driven, kind of self-absorbed and willing to use people who are offering help. The fact that she crashed so many times and just kept trying again until she broke aviation records is fairly impressive.
Felix von Luckner - Wow! What an interesting person! The one with the smallest connection to NZ (he was a German prisoner-of-war here during WW1), this captain was known as 'the Sea-Devil' or 'the last of the pirates' and was admired even by his enemies. How have I not heard about him before? Elements of this chapter also remind me of older sitcoms, particularly Hogan's Heroes.
Richard Pearce - The early NZ inventor who may have achieved flight before the Wright brothers. I knew that much, but didn't realise how much disappointment he faced, especially towards the end of his life. Kind of a tragic figure.
Suzanne Aubert - A French-born Catholic nun from early NZ history who ended up founding a home for unwanted children. Seems like a genuinely lovely and compassionate woman with a bit of an edge.
Herbert Guthrie-Smith - A farmer, naturalist, photographer and writer. His main book, Tutira, sounds interesting enough that I might hunt a copy out for my 'classic NZ literature' library.
James K Baxter - I knew the name, but not much else other than that he was a poet. Also a fairly tragic figure, who struggled with drink and fidelity, had a sort of spiritual awakening, experimented with a commune, and died relatively young.
Worth checking out.
Completed 4 May 2022.
(Alphabet Soup Books)
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