The Saltwater Highway by Gordon McLauchlan

An engaging story of the development of ports and shipping around New Zealand told with a mix of wit and perception by one of our most well-known journalists and social commentators.

New Zealand, a country ‘rinsed by the sea’, has a shipping story to tell as long and convoluted as its coastline. Thoroughly researched, with an eye for a good yarn but also with an acute sense of the shifting social and political changes over the years, McLauchlan tells an informative and engaging tale. Divided into five parts, the book covers the early colonial days, the developing (and still functioning) ports, working on the wharves, port reform and the move, in later years, to containers. The narrative is always lively, picking out the most salient and fascinating elements of what might otherwise be a rambling history of little relevance to today's reader.

Features:

v the controversial and very fraught times of union agitation on the wharves in the 1930s and ’40s;

v the subsequent age of reform in shipping and workplace practices;

v the shift to the container age and related advantages, issues and controversies;

v detailed histories of the development of all of the still-functioning ports around the country — Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Whanganui, New Plymouth, Bluff, Dunedin/Port Chalmers, Lyttelton, Westland, Timaru, Napier, Gisborne, Whangarei and Tauranga.

Gordon McLauchlan is one of New Zealand’s best known journalists and columnists. He has worked in radio and television and for provincial and metropolitan newspapers throughout the country including The New Zealand Herald where he was also books editor and a columnist for many years.

Gordon McLauchlan has published 17 books, many of them histories including The Passionless People, a best-selling social commentary on New Zealanders (1976); A Short History of New Zealand (2004); Great Tales From New Zealand History (2005) , The Farming of New Zealand (2006) The Life and Times of Auckland (2008) and The Passionless People Revisited, published earlier this year.  He lives in Auckland.

The Saltwater Highway by Gordon McLauchlan  |  David Bateman Publishers  |  rrp. $44.99  | paperback with b&w photos  |  published June 2012