Two Worlds First Meetings Between Maori and Europeans, 1642-1772

Two Worlds is a penetrating rethinking of that view. Drawing on local tribal knowledge as well as European accounts, Anne Salmond shows those first meetings in a new light. Both Maori and European protagonists were active, all fully human, following their own practical, political and mythological agendas, 'quite unlike those of their modern-day descendants in many ways'. The result is a work of trail-blazing significance in which many popular misconceptions and bigotries to do with common perceptions of traditional Maori society are revealed. It also opens up new possibilities in the international study of European exploration and 'discovery'.