Judith Binney

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Judith Binney, DCNZM is a New Zealand historian. Her work has focussed primarily on religion in New Zealand, especially the indigenous Ringatu religion founded by Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki and continued by Rua Kenana.^[1] Binney has written biographies of both Te Kooti and Kenana, as well as a book on Kenana's followers, and another on Pakeha missionary Thomas Kendall. With Judith Bassett and Erik Olssen she also wrote People and the Land, a history of New Zealand aimed at high school level readers.

Binney was born in Australia in 1940. For many years she taught at the University of Auckland, but is now retired and is an Emeritus Professor. In 1997 she was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and in 2006 a Distinguished Companion (equivalent to a damehood). In 1998 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in New Zealand. She was awarded $60,000 at the Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement in 2006. Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark said that 'Judith Binney’s work plays a vital role in recording our history, with a focus on Maori communities. Her writing draws on oral histories and communal memories, and uses photographic sources as an integral part of the written historical discourse.'^[2]

[edit] Books

Author

The legacy of guilt : a life of Thomas Kendall (Oxford University Press, 1968).
Mihaia : the prophet Rua Kenana and his community at Maungapohatu (with Gillian Chaplin and Craig Wallace. Oxford University Press, 1979).
Ngā Mōrehu: The survivors (with Gillian Chaplin. Oxford University Press, 1986).
The people and the land: Te tangata me te whenua: an illustrated history of New Zealand, 1820-1920 (with Judith Bassett and Erik Olssen. Allen & Unwin, 1990).
Redemption songs : a life of Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki (Bridget Williams Books, 1995).

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