Hostile Shores

The Maori canoes arrived to a precarious landscape, prone to tectonic upheaval, earthquakes, landslides, volcanic activity and tsunami. Settlements clustered on the coast were particularly vulnerable to catastrophic events. Bruce McFadgen has written an authoritative, groundbreaking study of the effects of these catastrophic events on the New Zealand coastal landscape and its people from the time of first Polynesian settlement until the sixteenth century. Evidence from the disciplines of history, anthropology, archaeology, vulcanology, geology, demography and, most important, oral tradition combine to offer a broad picture. In particular, McFadgen describes how the 'big crunch' of the fifteenth century, with its increased tidal waves, impacted severely on the coastal population and exacerbated many social problems. ""Hostile Shores"" is a product of meticulous and rigorous research and it will be of considerable interest to the many readers who are fascinated by New Zealand's prehistory.