This book is a sequel to Paul Moon's very successful Fatal Frontiers, published by Penguin in 2006 and reprinted. The decade after the Treaty was signed saw growth in settler pressures, the arrival of Governor Grey, the first formal European settlements in Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch, Hone Heke's rebellion, the War in the North, and the movement of the capital to Auckland. Moon takes a 'new' approach, just as he did with Fatal Frontiers, in which he argued that it's a mistake to view the 1830s as a simple inexorable path to the signing of the Treaty. In fact, he asserted, nobody knew what would happen.
Like Fatal Frontiers before it, 'The Newest Country In The World' is very good popular, accessible NZ history, written for the general reader.
