1 With the America's Cup fleet based next door, Auckland's waterfront Maritime Museum is getting a wave of visitors. But why is the museum selling a piece of white supremacist pseudo-history in its small bookshop? (thread) 
2 To the Ends of the Earth was published in 2012. It was written by Noel Hilliam, Gary Cook, & Maxwell Hill, & claims that white people reached NZ long before Maori. Hilliam, who died in 2017, was notorious for his raids on Maori burial caves & his far right political activism.
3 Hilliam worked with the One NZ Foundation, which claims Maori are not indigenous to NZ & have no rights under the Treaty. At the time of his death he was under investigation from Heritage NZ for stealing a skull from a Kaipara cave.
4 Maxwell Hill believes that Maori only reached NZ accidentally, as crew on Chinese ships. Like Hilliam & Cook, he claims that a conspiracy of academics, museum curators, & politicians is hiding the reality that whites are NZ's tangata whenua.
5 To the Ends of the Earth argues that Greeks circumnavigated the world thousands of years ago & established a civilisation in NZ. The book was banned by scholars, but embraced by right-wing activists like Cam Slater.
6 I've been studying pseudo-histories like To the Ends of the Earth for years. I don't advocate their suppression by the state. I think that they should be stocked by large public libraries & by research libraries. But I don't think they should be on sale at the Maritime Museum.
7 The Maritime Museum hosts many visitors unfamiliar with NZ & its history, & holds only a very small number of books in its store. It is reasonable to expect these books to be credible accounts of NZ's past.
8 In a large library, like the Auckland Public library or the University of Auckland library, a book like To the Ends of the Earth is properly contextualised. It sits amongst many books that express countervailing views; its status as a fringe text is clear. Not so in the museum.
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