Although Michael Belgrave notes in the Introduction to Becoming Aotearoa that national histories are currently unfashionable, he believes they provide an opportunity to weave together disparate aspects of the past into an overall framework that can help to reveal what was, and possibly still is, distinctive about New Zealand. His overall interpretive position thus corresponds with a long tradition that explains New Zealand history in terms of its exceptional characteristics.
Diana Morrow (Tue,) studied this question.