REVIEW: Insider's view of nuclear-free NZ's 'people power'

Abstract

Book review of: Peace, Power & Politics: How New Zealand Became Nuclear Free, by Maire Leadbeater. Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2013, 344pp. , ISBN 9781877578588

Journalism's focus on major political figures and high level negotiations leaves the more diffuse activities of grassroots politics in the shadows. So it is refreshing to see a well-researched book unapologetically placing civic groups at centre-stage. Marie Leadbeater’s thorough chronology of the last 40 years of New Zealand’s peace movement and the fight for a nuclear-free country fills some gaps in our knowledge about the mechanics of ‘people power’. It’s an insider’s view. Leadbeater, daughter of feminist and peace campaigner Elsie Locke, says activism is in her genes. She was secretary and then spokeperson for Auckland’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, closely involved with the nuclear free protests of the 1970s and 1980s and still demonstrating at Waihopai’s satellite communication monitoring station in 2013.