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New Zealand Now

In 1940 (the hundredth anniversary of New Zealand) the Government commissioned a number of authorities to produce accounts of New Zealand life and history. None was more favourably received than Mr. Oliver Duff's volume—New Zealand Now (which sold out in record time). This was no documented or statistical analysis. It was, rather, an impressionistic sketch of New Zealand life. Mr. Duff was concerned with the "feel" of life in his own country and conveyed his personal view with both eloquence and precision. His portraits of some characteristic New Zealanders stick specially in the memory.

What it feels like to be a New Zealander in 1955 is not so very different from what it felt like in 1940. So essentially did the author distil the "New Zealandishness" of 1940 that it remains a remarkable portrait of this country fifteen years later. Moreover it is clearly of interest beyond the shores of New Zealand itself to all who have some curiosity about the life and affairs of the Commonwealth. This edition has a new preface and a postcript.