Peace, Power & Politics ― How New Zealand Became Nuclear Free

This is a story of how ordinary people created a movement of peace activism that changed New Zealand's foreign policy and identity as a nation. Peace activism from the country's pre-recorded history to 1975 was told in the book Peace People: A History of Peace Activities in New Zealand (1992) by Elsie Locke. In this new book, her daughter Maire Leadbeater carries the story up to the 1990s in an account of the dramatic, colorful, and courageous activist campaigns that led the New Zealand government to enact nuclear-free legislation in 1987. Politicians took the credit, however, they were responding to a powerful groundswell of public opinion. Nuclear disarmament has become part of the country's communal psyche to a greater extent than in any other Western-aligned nation. [Author Maire Leadbeater holds an Amnesty International New Zealand lifetime award for her work in human rights.]