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Making History: A New Zealand Story
The story of one historian, and a country, awakening to New Zealand’s past.
‘Men no longer whisper “Revolution”, they shout it; and they no longer carry banners, but throw bricks’ – Letter home from Harvard, 1970.
Jock Phillips grew up in post-war Christchurch where history meant Ancient Greece and home was England. Over the last 50 years – through the Māori renaissance, the women’s movement, the rediscovery of ANZAC and more – Phillips has lived through a revolution in New Zealanders’ understanding of their identity. And from A Man’s Country to Te Ara, in popular writing, exhibitions, television and the internet, he played a key role in instigating that revolution. Making History tells the story of how Jock Phillips and other New Zealanders discovered this country’s past.
In this memoir, Phillips turns his deep historical skills on himself. How did the son of Anglophile parents, educated among the sons of Canterbury sheep farmers at Christ’s College, work out that the history of this country might have real value? From Harvard, Black Power and sexual politics in America, to challenging male culture in New Zealand in A Man’s Country, to engaging with Māori in Te Papa and Te Ara, Phillips revolted against his background and became a pioneering public historian, using new ways to communicate history to a broad audience.
‘Men no longer whisper “Revolution”, they shout it; and they no longer carry banners, but throw bricks’ – Letter home from Harvard, 1970.
Jock Phillips grew up in post-war Christchurch where history meant Ancient Greece and home was England. Over the last 50 years – through the Māori renaissance, the women’s movement, the rediscovery of ANZAC and more – Phillips has lived through a revolution in New Zealanders’ understanding of their identity. And from A Man’s Country to Te Ara, in popular writing, exhibitions, television and the internet, he played a key role in instigating that revolution. Making History tells the story of how Jock Phillips and other New Zealanders discovered this country’s past.
In this memoir, Phillips turns his deep historical skills on himself. How did the son of Anglophile parents, educated among the sons of Canterbury sheep farmers at Christ’s College, work out that the history of this country might have real value? From Harvard, Black Power and sexual politics in America, to challenging male culture in New Zealand in A Man’s Country, to engaging with Māori in Te Papa and Te Ara, Phillips revolted against his background and became a pioneering public historian, using new ways to communicate history to a broad audience.
384 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 16, 2019
One of the most valuable qualities needed by a historian is the ability to communicate and get ideas across to others. Jock Phillips seems to have that talent in spades. His writings here, both about his own experiences and the history of his own family, are a pleasure to read. He has the ability to bring stories alive.
What he charts in his own development is the journey from academic history, teaching rows of students in lecture theatres, to becoming what he calls a ‘public historian’ of New Zealand, communicating to a more general non-academic audience, not just by writing, but via images, museum exhibitions, talking on radio and television, and finally developing a new language of history for the web.
Phillips begins his story with his grandfather, born in the Jewish East End of London, at the same time as and just along the road from the Jack the Ripper murders. No one knows what drove Sam Phillips, at the age of 16, to get on a boat for New Zealand, but by the time Jock was born in 1947, his own father had just been appointed professor of history at Canterbury University. This looking back two generations to the ancestors on both sides of his family, gives a unique insight into a long phase of development. Both Jock’s parents had strong ties back to the UK and to a tradition of settlers and farmers. On his mother’s side there were large properties owned in the Hawke’s Bay and before that roles in colonial administration in Australia. There was an expectation that Jock would be brought up with an education that mirrored what he might have got in England.
There was rugby, cricket and tennis as well as garden parties and domestic servants. With two parents who had studied history, Jock seemed destined to follow a similar course, but what set him apart eventually was his unwillingness to accept that there was no history to speak of in New Zealand itself. He would turn against the English and European history that his father taught and eventually Jock gained a place at Harvard to study American history.
I must confess to being surprised at the extent to which English history and culture was a factor for Jock growing up in Christchurch in the 1950s and 60s. Schooling and study were modelled on an English system, so much so that when Jock had to spend a year at Dulwich College in London, he fitted in easily.
The period covered by the book is one of changing methods in the field of history. Oral history, demographic statistics or the use of popular culture like songs and adverts to reveal popular attitudes, were all new avenues to explore.
The Editor of the New Zealand Listener asked Jock to write a column in 1975 about the country and its issues, simply on the strength of a letter he sent critically stating that success for an established historian was not when locals began to think about their own condition, but when the historian was recognized by Oxford or Buckingham Palace. His letter used his initials J O C Phillips, but that was seen as too cumbersome, so he became known as Jock, which has stuck ever since.
In the years after completing his US thesis, Jock worked on two books, one on domestic stained-glass windows and the other on Kiwi men. While travelling the country to look for examples of stained glass in domestic homes, most of the time he was offered tea and scones by proud owners, except in Auckland where the owners were more likely to assume that he was casing the joint for a robbery.
One of the things that I enjoyed most about this book was watching Jock Phillips’ career evolve over the years and watch his gradual shift from historian, then American historian into a champion of New Zealand history. And that is not just history of long ago, but of ourselves in recent years, how Kiwis came to evolve their own characteristics and national identity. He worked running the Stout Centre for research into many aspects of New Zealand, then designed displays for the new Te Papa museum, worked as a civil servant with a department that wrote histories of many aspects of New Zealand life and finally presided over the development of an online encyclopedia of all things New Zealand. All these aspects are fascinating, as are the people with whom Jock had contact, both scholars and creatives but also the politicians who were instrumental in providing the much needed funding to make these initiatives possible. Some of the success in museums and online history have put New Zealand at the forefront of bringing history to life, and have drawn much admiration from other parts of the world.
While working on exhibitions at Te Papa, I was interested to note an approach was taken from US history, where there was a suggestion that what had made American democracy was not the values new settlers brought from the Old World, but the interaction with the frontier, with the environment of the New World.
You really come away from this book with a sense that Jock Phillips has enjoyed almost every moment of his professional life, and that makes for inspiring reading.
What he charts in his own development is the journey from academic history, teaching rows of students in lecture theatres, to becoming what he calls a ‘public historian’ of New Zealand, communicating to a more general non-academic audience, not just by writing, but via images, museum exhibitions, talking on radio and television, and finally developing a new language of history for the web.
Phillips begins his story with his grandfather, born in the Jewish East End of London, at the same time as and just along the road from the Jack the Ripper murders. No one knows what drove Sam Phillips, at the age of 16, to get on a boat for New Zealand, but by the time Jock was born in 1947, his own father had just been appointed professor of history at Canterbury University. This looking back two generations to the ancestors on both sides of his family, gives a unique insight into a long phase of development. Both Jock’s parents had strong ties back to the UK and to a tradition of settlers and farmers. On his mother’s side there were large properties owned in the Hawke’s Bay and before that roles in colonial administration in Australia. There was an expectation that Jock would be brought up with an education that mirrored what he might have got in England.
There was rugby, cricket and tennis as well as garden parties and domestic servants. With two parents who had studied history, Jock seemed destined to follow a similar course, but what set him apart eventually was his unwillingness to accept that there was no history to speak of in New Zealand itself. He would turn against the English and European history that his father taught and eventually Jock gained a place at Harvard to study American history.
I must confess to being surprised at the extent to which English history and culture was a factor for Jock growing up in Christchurch in the 1950s and 60s. Schooling and study were modelled on an English system, so much so that when Jock had to spend a year at Dulwich College in London, he fitted in easily.
The period covered by the book is one of changing methods in the field of history. Oral history, demographic statistics or the use of popular culture like songs and adverts to reveal popular attitudes, were all new avenues to explore.
The Editor of the New Zealand Listener asked Jock to write a column in 1975 about the country and its issues, simply on the strength of a letter he sent critically stating that success for an established historian was not when locals began to think about their own condition, but when the historian was recognized by Oxford or Buckingham Palace. His letter used his initials J O C Phillips, but that was seen as too cumbersome, so he became known as Jock, which has stuck ever since.
In the years after completing his US thesis, Jock worked on two books, one on domestic stained-glass windows and the other on Kiwi men. While travelling the country to look for examples of stained glass in domestic homes, most of the time he was offered tea and scones by proud owners, except in Auckland where the owners were more likely to assume that he was casing the joint for a robbery.
One of the things that I enjoyed most about this book was watching Jock Phillips’ career evolve over the years and watch his gradual shift from historian, then American historian into a champion of New Zealand history. And that is not just history of long ago, but of ourselves in recent years, how Kiwis came to evolve their own characteristics and national identity. He worked running the Stout Centre for research into many aspects of New Zealand, then designed displays for the new Te Papa museum, worked as a civil servant with a department that wrote histories of many aspects of New Zealand life and finally presided over the development of an online encyclopedia of all things New Zealand. All these aspects are fascinating, as are the people with whom Jock had contact, both scholars and creatives but also the politicians who were instrumental in providing the much needed funding to make these initiatives possible. Some of the success in museums and online history have put New Zealand at the forefront of bringing history to life, and have drawn much admiration from other parts of the world.
While working on exhibitions at Te Papa, I was interested to note an approach was taken from US history, where there was a suggestion that what had made American democracy was not the values new settlers brought from the Old World, but the interaction with the frontier, with the environment of the New World.
You really come away from this book with a sense that Jock Phillips has enjoyed almost every moment of his professional life, and that makes for inspiring reading.
July 22, 2019
I initially picked this up because Jock Phillips's book 'Brief Encounter' (about the American forces in New Zealand during WWII) had been a key text when researching for a work of my own set at that time. Little did I know what a crucial gatekeeper and promotor of New Zealand Aotearoa history he has been. From his work with The Strout Research Centre and Te Papa Museum, to being the engine behind our online encyclopedia, Te Ara, Phillips has been instrumental to the renaissance of New Zealand history.
A really great read!
A really great read!
October 11, 2019
As someone who has lived through the same time period it was more interesting to read about the author's experiences in his later working life, especially at Te Papa and on Te Ara. Sad to see the compromises made at TP and the relative freedom to develop TA to an excellent level. However this part of the story is the least satisfying as a memoir/autobiography - not enough human relationship interest, although there is plenty of evidence of how important relationships can be in gaining work and furthering one's aims. I suppose inevitably if one networks enough in New Zealand one's story is bound to come out as a record of 'old boys' influence ; but still shocking and disturbing to me and sad to see so few women being able or wanting to take up senior positions in the historical field. It is not a surprise to me that there was so little teaching of NZ history and I have experienced the reluctance of primary school teachers to enter into this field especially when issues are contentious and/or reveal the disasters of colonial influences. However I have never had a problem getting hold of material to learn about our history; I had a very keen history teacher at Tokomairirio High School in Milton, South Otago who introduced local and NZ history and at Otago University I was able to study it through a very enlightening paper called Modern Pacific History - and partly in Anthropology. Yes it should have been a paper of its own but at least there was something, whereas it sounds like other universities had nothing to offer in the field.
Overall I think it would have been better for someone else to write his life and be able to blend the previously written pieces together into a more cohesive biography - but still useful to have this record.
Overall I think it would have been better for someone else to write his life and be able to blend the previously written pieces together into a more cohesive biography - but still useful to have this record.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews