This is phenomenally well researched - a history of Ngāti Kahu come out of oral histories and written records. Much of it is infuriating, chronicling as it does the truly brazen theft of the lands at the centre of the relevant Waitangi claims. Even living in New Zealand as I do - and therefore as someone who should have at least a passing familiarity with the subject - I was shocked. It's clear how much I do not know.

Much of this was valuable reading for me in that respect. Much of it was valuable reading... but not for me. This book was written for the benefit of Ngāti Kahu and is naturally oriented towards them. I have to admit I could not get very interested in the long swathes of genealogy included here (I'm not that interested in my own genealogy, let alone anyone else's!) but I'm not the target audience for that, so my disinterest shouldn't speak to the value of the work. 

On a technical level, I do wonder about the tables. There are many of them, and they are lengthy and repetitive. I wonder if there could have been a more effective way of ordering that information so the same data wasn't repeated so very many times, but that is, as I said, a technical quibble.

Worth reading, and in places fascinating, but as I said: in places not for me. And that's fine. Not everything is or should be.