New Zealand Writers
MCKINNON, Malcolm
McKinnon has a real ear for the significant detail
Margaret Clark, New Zealand Books, March 2004
McKinnon, Malcolm (1950 – ) is a historian.
Malcolm McKinnon was born in Wellington. He received a Master of Philosophy from Oxford University and a doctorate from Victoria University. He has worked as a historian since 1976 for Victoria University, the Historical Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs, the Alexander Turnbull Library and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
He has published three books including the first published history of the New Zealand Treasury in 2003, Treasury: the New Zealand Treasury, 1840–2000. His first book, Independence and foreign policy: New Zealand in the world since 1935, was published in 1993 and Immigrants and citizens: New Zealanders and Asian immigration in historical context followed in 1996. He also edited the New Zealand Historical Atlas/Ko Papatuanuku e Takoto Nei (1997), which was awarded the Readers’ Choice Award at the 1998 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
Reviewing the New Zealand Historical Atlas in New Zealand Books (August 1998) Miles Fairburn wrote that ‘the Atlas is one of the best reference tools on New Zealand history we have […] the Atlas often presents familiar aspects of New Zealand’s past in a visually imaginative fashion which makes us rethink them or leads us to take them less for granted.’
David Pearson, New Zealand Books (June 1997) commented that ‘Malcolm McKinnon’s slim volume, Immigrants and Citizens, should be required reading for all those seeking to understand the historical context out of which current debates and tensions about so-called “Asian” immigration have arisen.’
(KM)
