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Author Davidson, Jared, 1984- author.

Title Dead letters : censorship and subversion in New Zealand, 1914-1920 / Jared Davidson
Published Dunedin, New Zealand : Otago, 2019

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Description 1 online resource : illustrations
Summary In 1918, from deep within the West Coast bush, a miner on the run from the military wrote a letter to his sweetheart. Two months later he was in jail. Like millions of others, his letter had been steamed open by a team of censors shrouded in secrecy. Using their confiscated mail as a starting point, Dead Letters: Censorship and subversion in New Zealand 1914-1920 reveals the remarkable stories of people caught in the web of wartime surveillance. Among them were a feisty German-born socialist, a Norwegian watersider, an affectionate Irish nationalist, a love-struck miner, an aspiring Maxim Gorky, a cross-dressing doctor, a nameless rural labourer, an avid letter writer with a hatred of war, and two mystical dairy farmers with a poetic bent. Military censorship within New Zealand meant that their letters were stopped, confiscated and filed away, sealed and unread for over 100 years. Until now. Intimate and engaging, this dramatic narrative weaves together the personal and political, bringing to light the reality of wartime censorship. In an age of growing state power, new forms of surveillance and control, and fragility of the right to privacy and freedom of opinion, Dead Letters is a startling reminder that we have been here before. The letters under discussion are anything but dead
Notes Archived by the National Library of New Zealand in EPUB. Nz
Hypertext links contained in the archived instances of this title may not be functional. Nz
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references
Subject Censorship -- New Zealand -- History -- 20th century
Government, Resistance to -- New Zealand -- History -- 20th century
Freedom of the press -- New Zealand
Censorship
Freedom of the press
Government, Resistance to
New Zealand
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2020447101
ISBN 9781988531939
1988531934
9781988531946
1988531942
9781988531953
1988531950