New Zealand-based author Rüdiger Mack is releasing a new book about Dutch navigator Abel Tasman (1603-1659). Titled First Encounters: The Early Pacific and European Narratives of Abel Tasman’s 1642 Voyage, Mack’s 348-page book takes a new look at the beginnings of contacts between the Dutch and Indigenous peoples in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific.
First Encounters will be published in September 2024 by Heritage Press with assistance from the NetherlaNZ Foundation. The book will be available in bookshops in Australia and New Zealand from 12 September 2024. It can also be ordered online.
About the author:
Rüdiger Mack grew up in Germany where he studied German, Dutch and history at the University of Münster and graduated with an MA. He has a strong interest in anthropology, archaeology and the history of the early contact period and the European discovery of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. He has published several articles in historical and archaeological journals. Rudiger is a retired language teacher and runs an antiquarian bookshop in Wellington, New Zealand.
He became interested in Abel Tasman’s expeditions when he found that excerpts and illustrations from the journal of Tasman’s chief navigator published in Nicolaes Witsen’s book Noord en Oost Tartarye had never been completely translated into English.
Book Launches (New Zealand):
- Wednesday 18 September 2024, 7.30pm in the von Kohorn room at the Wellington Museum, Queens Wharf
- Sunday 22 September 2024, 2pm at the Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom museum in Foxton, 92 Main Street
Book launch events in Australia TBC.
