The Good Settler
Book •
Richard Shaw's The Good Settler collects essays that trace personal and national histories tied to colonisation, focusing on how settler families inherited land and narratives in Aotearoa.
Drawing on Shaw's family history — including an ancestor involved in the 1881 Parihaka invasion — the book interrogates myths of equality and the settler story.
Shaw situates personal recollection alongside wider historical examples of land confiscation, broken deals, and legal mechanisms that disadvantaged Māori.
The essays aim to prompt readers, especially Pākehā, to confront uncomfortable truths about inheritance, identity, and the country's past.
The book completes a trilogy that began with The Forgotten Coast and continues Shaw’s public engagement on historical remembrance and reckoning.
Drawing on Shaw's family history — including an ancestor involved in the 1881 Parihaka invasion — the book interrogates myths of equality and the settler story.
Shaw situates personal recollection alongside wider historical examples of land confiscation, broken deals, and legal mechanisms that disadvantaged Māori.
The essays aim to prompt readers, especially Pākehā, to confront uncomfortable truths about inheritance, identity, and the country's past.
The book completes a trilogy that began with The Forgotten Coast and continues Shaw’s public engagement on historical remembrance and reckoning.
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Paul Diamond
Book review: The Good Settler by Richard Shaw
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Kathryn Ryan
Richard Shaw
Richard Shaw's books on his journey to understand colonisation
