Colonising New Zealand offers a radically new vision of the basis and process of Britains colonisation of New Zealand. It commences by confronting the problems arising from subjective and ever-evolving moral judgements about colonisation and examines the possibility of understanding colonisation beyond the confines of any preoccupations with moral perspectives.

It then investigates the motives behind Britains imperial expansion, both in a global context and specifically in relation to New Zealand. The nature and reasons for this expansion are deciphered using the model of an organic imperial ecosystem, which involves examining the first cause of all colonisation and which provides a means of understanding why the disparate parts of the colonial system functioned in the ways that they did.

Britains imperial system did not bring itself into being, and so the notion of the Empire having emerged from a supra-system is assessed, which in turn leads to an exploration of the idea of equilibrium-achievement as the Prime Mover behind all colonisationsomething that is borne out in New Zealands experience from the late eighteenth century. This work changes profoundly the way New Zealands colonisation is interpreted, and provides a framework for reassessing all forms of imperialism.