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In this episode, Kate is joined by our first guest from New Zealand, archivist and independent historian Jared Davidson. Though he was not trained as a historian and originally comes from a graphic design background, Jared has written and published five books that focus on overlooked and radical histories of New Zealand, or Aotearoa, as you’ll hear him call it.

During the day, he works at the Alexander Turnbull Library, where he is the Research Librarian Manuscripts. His books have won multiple awards in New Zealand and have covered subjects ranging from anarchists to censorship. His most recent book, Blood and Dirt: Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand, uncovers the ways that incarcerated labor literally shaped the country’s environment and landscape. If you’re a historian who comes to the subject without formal training, you’ll especially love this episode, but there’s a lot here to learn for all of us, including how to weave compelling individual stories into a strong argument, which Jared does brilliantly in this book.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Jared Davidson’s website
• Jared Davidson, Blood & Dirt: Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand
• Jared Davidson, The History of a Riot
• Jared Davidson, Dead Letters: Censorship and Subversion in New Zealand 1914-1920
• Jared Davidson, Sewing Freedom: Philip Josephs, Transnationalism, and Early New Zealand Anarchism
• Jared Davidson, Remains to Be Seen: Tracing Joe Hill’s Ashes in New Zealand
• Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand
• Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History
• Thomas G. Andrews, Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War
• Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa; Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves; To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918
• “James Kelman: I’ll die at the desk. So what. Where’s the coffee?”
• Marcus Rediker books
• Marcus Rediker, “The Poetics of History from Below”