'Despite stretching back to the first European settlement in this country, the history of prison labour documented by Jared Davidson has been hidden away like a shameful secret. Blood and Dirt reveals the results of ‘unfree labour’ populating the New Zealand landscape, including trees, roads, buildings, bridges, breakwaters and walls. Underpinned by exhaustive research and featuring rarely seen photographs, this beautifully produced book will change the way we view our past and the landscapes we inhabit.' – Paul Diamond (Ngāti Hauā, Te Rarawa and Ngāpuhi), Curator, Māori at the Alexander Turnbull Library and author of Downfall: the Destruction of Charles Mackay
'Jared Davidson’s Blood and Dirt is the compelling story of how prisoners built colonial New Zealand ‘one cartload of stone at a time’. Evocatively illustrated, this book profoundly alters our perception of the landscape by vividly recasting it through imprisoned eyes. Nothing will ever look quite the same again.' – Kristyn Harman, Associate Professor in History, University of Tasmania and author of Cleansing the Colony: Transporting Convicts from New Zealand to Van Diemen’s Land
'In this remarkable book, Jared Davidson upends our understanding of New Zealand history. Blood and Dirt reveals prison labour as central to colonisation, as prisoners cleared land, constructed roads and buildings, and established agriculture and farms. "Hidden in plain sight", these workers served the needs of state and capital, to such an extent that prisons must now be seen as part of the larger history of coercion and violence that characterised settler-colonialism.' – Clare Anderson, Professor of History, University of Leicester and author of Convicts: A Global History
'It is not often that a book can challenge the way you see the world around you. Jared Davidson’s Blood and Dirt does precisely this.' – Ti Lamusse, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History
'A truly eye-opening book by a very good labour historian. Wherever you live in Aotearoa, it’s likely some of the infrastructure around you was built by prisoners. Davidson makes great use of the archives to tell various aspects of the lives of prisoners and their work.' – Alison Clarke, Clarke's Quill
'Davidson’s storytelling capabilities are evident from his opening words: “It wasn’t by choice that Harry Brown was up and working so early”... Throughout the book, he skilfully weaves personal stories through the facts and figures, and his punchy, confident writing style deftly handles weighty methodological topics.' – Lucy Mackintosh, Waka Kauka | Journal of the Polynesian Society
'Lively account of how crime and punishment, capital and labour, came together, in this reappraisal of incarceration since colonial settlement, prisoners’ efforts – streets, breakwalls, defence fortifications – hiding in plain sight.' – The Listener
'[Davidson's] details of the nature of this forced labour are deeply affecting. The prisoners' work also created farms, exotic commercial forests, and reclaimed land from sea and swamps, even extending to islands in the south Pacific! See our public buildings, amenities, and landscapes through newly horrified eyes.' – Unity Books Wellington
'Crime and punishment, capital and labour. Mixed together, they serve up, in Jared Davidson’s Blood & Dirt, a reappraisal of incarceration since colonial settlement ... The general reader will find much of historic interest.' – Nevil Gibson, The Listener
'This book is also a very readable history – in the WORD Christchurch 2024 session, Writing Power Jared said that his aim for his writing was the kind of book that his Dad would read, something easily readable and with a gripping narrative. He does a fine job here.' – Troy, Christchurch City Libraries
'Davidson has written a tremendous and vital book which explores the prison labour that contributed to the built environment of New Zealand. It's Aotearoa's social history, with a strong narrative drive. It's our history from a new angle. It's history from the ground up. It's an important book, about labour, capitalism, colonisation, and the crucial role that prisoners played here in public infrastructure.' – Kiran Dass, RNZ Nine to Noon
'Before this book I had never considered, or heard of, prison labour contributing to the built environment of Aotearoa New Zealand. This book is an essential history that will make you look with fresh eyes at the colonial project and the inequities of the justice system.' – Claire Mabey, The Spinoff
'[Davidson] charted the hidden history of prison labour across New Zealand's urban and rural landscapes and into the Pacific, as well the challenges of researching history from the bottom up.' – New Zealand History
'Blood and Dirt explains, for the first time, the making of New Zealand and its Pacific empire through the prism of prison labour. Jared Davidson asks us to look beyond the walls of our nineteenth- and early twentieth-century prisons to see penal practice as playing an active, central role in the creation of modern New Zealand. Journeying from the Hohi mission station in the Bay of Islands through to Milford Sound, vast forest plantations, and on to Parliament itself, this vivid and engaging book will change the way you view New Zealand.' – Ed Amon, New Books Network
'[Davidson] has corrected the record in an outstanding way by producing a book of which he and his publisher can be proud.' – Nevil Gibson, NBR
'A really good book... [Davidson] recounts the little-known history of forced labour. It's really remarkable how forced, unfree labour touched an enormous number of attractions, roads... pretty much the entire built landscape [of New Zealand].' – Anna Rankin, Radio New Zealand
'An archivist and historian has revealed New Zealand’s “hidden history” of forced colonial-era prison labour, that built some of the country’s major landmarks.' – Whena Owen, Q+A
'Historian Jared Davidson’s new book takes its title from one of Karl Marx’s evocative phrases: “Capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” His primary aim is to bring to the surface, largely hidden from history to date, the substantial role that convict labour had in building this country. He does this in spades. As well as with picks and bare hands.' – Rob Campbell, E-Tangata
'Some of New Zealand's most important roads, buildings, botanic gardens and great walks were constructed by forced labour, in an era where idleness and waste was deemed more criminal then crime. Historian Jared Davidson's new book Blood and Dirt" Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand reveals the extent to which convicts were used to bolster a labour shortage gap in the latter half of the 19th Century.' – Kim Hill, Radio New Zealand
'A new book by archivist Jared Davidson has unveiled a little-known aspect of New Zealand’s colonial history - the significant role of forced prison labour in building the country’s foundational infrastructure. The book, titled Blood & Dirt, brings attention to the use of coerced labour in building tracks, roads, ports, buildings, and Crown forests during the colonial era.' – Will Trafford, Te Ao Māori News
'This powerful book describes yet another hidden layer in the history of these islands, a place where imprisonment, labour, punishment, class and ethnicity all combine to create a narrative at odds with any imagined story of sturdy pioneers and well earned progress. Blood and Dirt: Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand is recommended reading in a time where the urge to imprison and punish remains strong undeterred by the failure of the system to do anything but that.' – David Veart, Kete Books
'A new book called Blood and Dirt by Jared Davidson explains the little-known history of forced prison labour and how it played a central role in the creation of our country.' – Dale Husband, Waatea News
'Wellington historian Jared Davidson has published a bold and carefully researched study of unpaid labour... In Blood and Dirt Prison: Labour and the Making of New Zealand, Davidson tracks work gangs of prisoners across the faces of New Zealand towns, through the alps and pumice plains of our hinterlands, and into the islands of a tropical empire.' – Scott Hamilton, Newsroom
Read 'The multi-billion-dollar industry that grew from prison labour' in The Spinoff
Read 'Convict New Zealand? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds' in The Spinoff
