Synopsis
A warm portrait of his Cornish parents tells of immigration, rural work, the depression, and Labour activism. Reading and ideas were important to these ‘people of the word’, and their youngest son avidly absorbed the education offered, from rural schools to Oxford University. In time he became one of New Zealand’s pre-eminent scholars, a man who was to make, as writer, teacher and editor, a particular contribution to New Zealand history.
The book follows the ‘ebbs and flows’ of New Zealand’s intellectual history, as Bill Oliver encountered, contributed to, and challenged the formative ideas of his time. The emerging focus on this country’s past, mid-century, leads to an engagement with Maori history, and on to the recent challenges of the post-colonial era.
This is a poet writing about history, and an historian writing autobiography: perceptive, wry, and sometimes painfully honest.
See Media & Comment for book extracts.
Endorsements 
'An aesthetic achievement of a kind that memoirs seldom approach.' Vincent O'Sullivan
'Intensely interesting and deeply satisfying.' Michael King
'This is an elegantly and warmly told memoir that weaves the story of history and the historian together to reveal how the telling of our story reflects the character of our teller.' Wairarapa Times-Age
'This reflection on the interaction of life and history is one of the most haunting memoirs to come out of this country.' The New Zealand Listener, Best of 2002 Books of the Year
'… a graceful, thoughtful and moving memoir.' Montana New Zealand Book Awards Judges Report 2003
Contents
1. A colonial future
2. A home in a strange land
3. Making a better world
4. People of the world
5. A time of opening
6. Departures and journeys
7. Finding a country
8. An expanding horizon
9. A time of turning
10. A crowded portrait gallery
11. Histories and politics
12. A history to live by
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