Language English Role Journalist Nationality New Zealand Children Rosie Scott | Alma mater Massey College Education Massey University Name Dick Scott | |
Notable awards Officer of the NZ Order of Merit
Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement Books Ask that mountain, Would a good man die? | ||
Richard George Scott ONZM (born 1923) is an influential New Zealand historian and journalist.
Contents
Work
His first book, 151 Days, an account of the 1951 New Zealand waterfront dispute, was published in 1952.
Scott's most well-known work is Ask That Mountain (1975), which recounts the events of the non-violent Māori resistance to European occupation at Parihaka. The story had largely been forgotten by non-Māori New Zealanders until the book's publication. It has been reprinted nine times, and former New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark, called it "one of New Zealand's most influential books". Scott also published an earlier, briefer account of the events in 1954, The Parihaka Story.
Scott has written several histories related to the Auckland region, such as In Old Mount Albert: Being a History of the District (1961), Fire on the Clay: The Pakeha Comes to West Auckland (1979) and Seven Lives on Salt River (1979), which won the New Zealand Book Award for Non-fiction. He has also written more general New Zealand works, including Inheritors of a Dream: A Pictorial History of New Zealand (1962) and Winemakers of New Zealand (1964), and Pacific histories such as Years of the Pooh-Bah: A Cook Islands History (1991) and Would a Good Man Die? Niue Island, New Zealand, and the late Mr Larsen (1993).
In 2004, Scott published his autobiography, Dick Scott: A Radical Writer's Life, which recounts his early years in the Communist Party, as well as his writing approach and career.
Scott has stated that he no longer writes, and hasn't re-read any of his books for "as long as I can remember ... You don't re-read old history".
Awards
Scott was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to historical research in the 2002 Queen's Birthday and Golden Julbilee Honours, and in 2007 he received the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Non-fiction.
Personal life
Scott has five children, and lives with his second wife in the suburb of Mount Eden, in Auckland, New Zealand. One of his children is the novelist Rosie Scott.
In 2011, Scott made headlines when he auctioned a Don Binney painting that he had owned for almost 50 years, and donated the NZD $300,000 proceeds to the Christchurch earthquake appeal.