Beyond the Battlefield: New Zealand and its Allies 1939-1945

The seventieth anniversary of the declaration of World War Two will be marked at a free public lecture at the Maidment Theatre on 21 September (5.30-6.30pm).

Gerald Hensley, a former Foreign Service Officer, senior public servant and now a well regarded historian, will be speaking on “Beyond the battlefield: New Zealand and its Allies 1939-1945”.
The lecture is based on his book of the same title commissioned by the National Army Museum Literary Award Fund and published by Penguin in early September. The book describes how New Zealand, as a small nation, took its place in Allied councils of war and later played an important part in post-war diplomacy leading to the establishment of the United Nations.

Rather than being a formal diplomatic history it relates to the human side — the irritants, the cross comments and the uncertainties which show how history is made.

In his lecture Mr Hensley will focus on the slightly fraught and sometimes bumpy relationship between Australia and New Zealand during that period.

Gerald Hensley is a qualified historian who served for many years in the Foreign Service and as head of the Prime Minister’s Department. As a young man he knew major participants in the events he scrutinises like Walter Nash, Carl Berendsen and Alister McIntosh and he is well qualified to interpret the way New Zealand responded.

Event listed by uniauckland

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