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Book Review by Associate Professor Damien Rogers Terence O’Brien, Consolations of Insignificance: A New Zealand Diplomatic Memoir, Te Herenga Waka University Press (Wellington, New Zealand, 2024). ISBN 9781776921393. 192 pages The genre of the diplomatic memoir was almost certainly invented to tempt author-protagonists into transcending the limits of their obituaries to claim an exalted place in some broader history by setting the record straight and casting their achievements in the best possible light. This means some memoirs are downright excruciating to read, especially when the author-protagonist never once got anything wrong and, even if they did appear to make a rare mistake, subsequent events proved them correct in the end.
Damien Rogers (Sun,) studied this question.