We publish books, photobooks and websites.
Our latest book is:

Technological Innovation and Economic Growth in New Zealand – 1918 to "Think Big".
This is a book version of the website  Techhistory.co.nz.  

In a remarkable way the course of New Zealand’s technological development over the next 60 years was spelled out in the first volume of the NZ Journal of Science & Technology published in 1918.
The era ended with the advent of the Think Big projects.
The authors of the articles were drawn from a new breed of technologists with formal training in science and engineering and a belief in systematic research and development. Three of them, all engineers, are noteworthy as trailblazers who established technologists as central figures in New Zealand’s economic development.

​The topics covered in that first volume in 1918 included: 

• pasture improvement as a means of increasing dairy and meat yields, 
• a successful method for iron and steel manufacture from local ironsands,
• the favourable economics of large-scale electrification with long-distance transmission (anticipating the Cook Strait cable),
• harnessing of geothermal steam for electricity,
•  electrification of the North Island main trunk line,
• electrochemical processing based on cheap electricity generated in Fiordland,
•  use of alcohol as a fuel,
• nitrogen-fertilizer manufacture from cheap energy,
• pinus radiata as the best tree for forestry, and
•  research inadequacy in the freezing industry. 

The book's narrative follows the progress of these along with other important technologies which emerged  until Think Big in the 1980s.
​ A final chapter traces the lead up to Think Big and the factors involved in the decision-making.

​Buy the Book  Paperback, 210 pages with Bibliography and Index  RRP $49.95 
​                           ISBN 978-0-473-36245-4
​

Purchase Details
File Size:	167 kb
File Type:	pdf

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