The Making of New Zealanders is an account of how transplanted Britons and others turned themselves into New Zealanders, a distinct group of people with their own songs and sports, symbols and opinions, political traditions and sense of self.

Looking at the onset of home-grown shipping, railway and telegraph networks, at Maori and the kiwi, at rugby teams and votes for women, Ron Palenski identifies the emergence of a national identity in 'God's Own'. From the mid-nineteenth century immigrants to New Zealand - men and women - came to see themselves as New Zealanders, and the ever-increasing number of native-born were New Zealanders. Key events at the dawn of the twentieth century often taken to signify the emergence of a New Zealand sense of self - the rejection of federation with Australia, involvement in the South African War and 1905 All Black tour - were, Palenski argues, an outward affirmation of a New Zealand identity that had already taken shape.

The Making of New Zealanders is a bold reconception of when and why the new inhabitants of this country first saw themselves as a distinct people.