Acknowledge No Frontier: The Creation and Demise of NZ's Provinces 1853-76

While other British settler societies – Australia, Canada, the US and South Africa – have states or provinces, New Zealand is a unitary state. Yet New Zealanders today hold firm provincial identities, dating from the time when the young colony was divided into provinces: 1853 to 1876. Why were the provinces created? How did settlers shape and change their institutions? And why, just over 20 years later, did New Zealand abolish its provincial governments? Acknowledge No Frontier, by André Brett, is a lively and insightful investigation into a crucial and formative part of New Zealand’s history.