Australasia dreaming

• Main Authors: Hempenstall, Peter, Mein Smith, Philippa
• Other Authors: The University of Newcastle. Faculty of Education & Arts, School of Humanities and Social Science
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Canterbury University Press 2008
• Subjects: trans-Tasman relations; Australia; New Zealand; transnational history; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/804713

In uncovering a history of multiple ties between New Zealand and Australia this book itself contributes to the remaking of the Tasman world. We began this study with the idea of moving beyond the stereotypes that dominate public accounts of trans-Tasman relations. Our goal of recovering a hidden history urged us to remap systems and traffic within the region that encompasses Australia and New Zealand, and to get beyond the trans-Tasman to the global. It demanded a new storyline that sits in addition to and between Australian and New Zealand histories; a storyline that, rather than comparing the two countries' stories, shows how those histories have interrelated with others. How the two histories have connected and interacted with each other, in the southern ocean, through time and especially since the federation of Australia in 1901, is the concern of this book. Our findings represent a case study of what historians call transnational history. Regionally, they amount to what we see as a remaking of the Tasman world.