New Zealand Legal History and New Zealand Historians: A Non-meeting of Minds

Abstract

This article is about New Zealand legal historiography. This is a thriving, if relatively new sub-field of New Zealand historical studies - a new kid on the historical block as it were. For it remains the case that the law has not penetrated very deeply into the consciousness of historians who teach in the history departments (as opposed to we historians who earn our daily bread in the law schools: although our interests are no less historical and historiographical, we do find ourselves distracted by having to teach complicated courses on the law of real property or equitable obligations to crowded classrooms of law students).