The Battlecruiser New Zealand

This book tells the story of The Battlecruiser New Zealand, a battlecruiser paid for by the people of New Zealand in 1909, during a time when Japan was perceived as a threat in Australasia and the Pacific. Born of the collision between New Zealand's patriotic dreams and European politics, the tale of HMS New Zealand is further wrapped in the turbulent power-plays at the Admiralty in the years leading up to World War I, not least because her design was already obsolescent when she was built.

Nevertheless, she went on to have a distinguished World War I career, being present in all three major naval battles—Heligoland, Dogger Bank, and Jutland—in the North Sea. The book outlines the politics and the engineering issues, providing a fast-paced account of the ship's career through official documents, eyewitness accounts of her crew, and other period documentation, including reports of her dockings and modifications.

All this is interwoven with the human and social context to create a 'biography' of the ship as an expression of human endeavour, engineering, and action, presented in significantly more detail than the summaries available in prior accounts.

Author: Matthew J. Wright is a critically acclaimed historian with more than sixty books to his name, which cover a range of historical fields, including social, military, naval, and engineering.

Features: 60 colour and black-and-white illustrations.