One historians research and the transformation of te Tiriti in New Zealand life.
Ruth Ross is hardly a household name, yet most New Zealanders today owe the way they understand the Treaty of Waitangi or te Tiriti o Waitangi as Ross called it to this remarkable womans path-breaking historical research.
Taking us on a journey from small university classes and a lively government department in the nations war-time capital to an economically poor but culturally rich Mori community in the far north, and from tiny schools and cloistered university offices to parliamentary committees and a legal tribunal, Attwood enables us to grasp how and why the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand law, politics, society and culture has been transformed in the last seven decades.
A frank and moving meditation on the making of history and its advantages and disadvantages for life in a democratic society, A Bloody Difficult Subject is a surprising story full of unforeseen circumstances, unexpected twists, unlikely turns and unanticipated outcomes.