This book sets out to examine the decision by the New Zealand government to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Captain James Cook and the implications of that decision both for Māori and for the wider global struggle against colonialism.

Analysing these thinly veiled celebrations alongside the role of the Doctrine of Discovery while charting Cook’s crime spree of murder, rape and pillage, Ngata urgently calls for a practice ethical remembering that requires unlearning the falsehoods of “exploration” and “discovery” and coming to terms with the horrifying reality of ongoing colonisation.