Rate My Professor Tom Brooking

Emeritus Professor Tom Brooking is affiliated with the Department of History at the University of Otago. He specialises in New Zealand and comparative rural and environmental history, New Zealand political history, and the historical links between New Zealand and Scotland. His research examines environmental transformation and the role of colonising peoples in that process, with particular emphasis on farming and its economic, environmental, and sociological impacts. Brooking earned his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Otago in 1977 with a thesis titled 'Agrarian businessman organise: a comparative study of the origins of the farmers' movements in the United States of America, New Zealand and the British Isles, 1870-1914'. He has made significant contributions to the field through extensive publications, including seven sole-authored books, two co-authored books, three edited volumes, numerous book chapters, essays, and journal articles.

Among his key works are 'Unpacking the Kists: The Scots in New Zealand' (2013, co-authored with B. Patterson and J. McAloon, Otago University Press), 'Seeds of Empire: The Environmental Transformation of New Zealand' (2011, edited with E. Pawson, I.B. Tauris), 'Making a New Land: Environmental Histories of New Zealand' (2013, edited with E. Pawson, Otago University Press), and 'Richard Seddon: King of God's Own' (2014, Penguin). Other notable publications include the article 'Green Scots and golden Irish: The environmental impact of Scottish and Irish settlers in New Zealand: Some preliminary ruminations' (2009, Journal of Irish & Scottish Studies), 'Silences of grass: Retrieving the role of pasture plants in the development of New Zealand and the British Empire' (2007, Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History), and the chapter 'Weaving the tartan into the flax: Networks, identities, and Scottish migration to nineteenth-century Otago, New Zealand' (2006, in A Global Clan). Brooking's scholarship has advanced understandings of New Zealand's rural development, settler impacts, and environmental changes within imperial contexts.