Light the fuse

Not the great New Zealand mobilisation novel

An early work-in-progress dedicated to helping,
circuitously, precipitate the Great Mobilisation

Dare to be wise!
Kant

Back matter

Bibliography

Contents
author Cimino
work-in-progress published 20250711

Great New Zealand History: Candidate surely, as the basis for the first of an essential three-part, multi-episodic history documentary series, The Origins of an Experimental Society: New Zealand 1769–1860 —and its two companion volumes, once published—have enormous potential to contribute to rebuilding a kinder New Zealand society—a team of five or more million committed to salvaging a survivable climate, one Aotearoa at a time. publisher Auckland University Press | typographic compaction Mahurangi Magazine

These unshaped islands, on the sawyer’s bench,
Wait for the chisel of the mind…
James K Baxter, New Zealand, 1972

Colloquium, at the first of the word’s three appearances in The Origins of an Experimental Society: New Zealand 1769–1860 , instantly became Cimino’s new most favourite word, of his new most favourite book, authored by candidate for his new most favourite New Zealand historian:

Bibliography – ordered alphabetically (by titlebut disrespecting the bloody The, where regrettably deployed)

Origins of an Experimental Society:
New Zealand 1769–1860. The,

author Erik Olssen
university Ōtago
publisher Auckland University Press
published 20250408
light-the-fuse perspective Wisdom abhors a vacuum, and Aotearoa is woefully the worserembracing the 1600–1700s vernacular for the lazy assumption that its colonisation by Europeans was typical of that which was visited upon the Americas, and even Australia. By itself, Dame Anne Salmond’s Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas —which Olssen quotes—was wondrous worthy of seeding a trilogy of first-contact movies which, as well as filling theatres worldwide, would have provided a springboard for the better education of New Zealanders young and old, Māori, Pākehā, Pasifika et al as to their uniquely Enlightenment-nuanced heritage. Be that as it may, Salmond’s stout ship sailed 21 years ago this2025 August, without materially boxing New Zealand’s compass. Thanks to The Origins of an Experimental Society, the docuseries-initiating trilogy demanded today would have considerably greater heft, incorporating the part the Enlightenment played in New Zealand’s European settlement, and the corresponding role the Pacific and Aotearoa played in the Enlightenment, which Olssen so superbly details—not least of all the contribution of the irrepressibly polymathic Benjamin Franklin, to the designFranklin made specific suggestions for Cook’s mission to establish key Old World domesticated animals and crops throughout the Pacific, for the strengthening of its societies of the New Zealand experiment.

Readers who long since had concluded that the main criticism of Britain’s voyages of exploration and of colonisation, from 1769 onward, were not ill-intention, but of ill-funding, won’t find much in Olssen’s fresh, meticulous account to disabuse them of that impression. Volume two of The Origins of an Experimental Society  will pre­sum­ably confirm Julius Vogel’s Great Public Works of the 1870s as the first robustly funded, at-scale New Zealand enterprise. That, began a period of large-scale public works—in­clud­ing planted forestry and hydroelectric infrastructure—that was de­servedly long held in high regard. But by the time of Robert Muldoon’s Think Bigcoined by Minister of Internal Affairs Alan Highet, who, that year also introduced God Defend New Zealand as the country’s national anthem, alongside God Save the Queen of the 1980s, any and every state-led initiative, locally and globally, was being lampooned as hopelessly inept in the face of the supposed superiority of the free market to make every last decision. Without its name being widely known, much less spoken , Ne­olib­er­al­ism won-out over gov­ern­men­tal—and hands-down over intergovernmental—planning, leaving civilisation dead in the 3rd Millennium Polycrisis water. Fervently, the few who subscribe to any form of Light the Fuse  life­line, must pray that some form of initiative that results in the Great Mobilisation features in the thirdand final, thrilling volume of Origins of an Experimental Society —New Zealand-in-origin, or otherwise.

‹ New research   | Endnotes ›

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Disclosure The author of this novel modello is no longer the secretary of Mahurangi Action Incorporated or the Mahurangi Coastal Path Trust. The content published here, however, is that of the editorially independent, independently funded Mahurangi Magazine.

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