Tom specialises in New Zealand and comparative rural and environmental history, New Zealand political history and the historical links between New Zealand and Scotland. This research has focused upon on environmental transformation and the role of colonising peoples in that process, particularly farming and its economic, environmental and sociological impacts.
He has published seven sole author books, two co-authored books, and three edited volumes, in addition to numerous book chapters, essays and articles. His three most recent major books are Making a New Land: Environmental Histories of New Zealand (University of Otago Press, 2013) edited with Eric Pawson; Unpacking the Kists: The Scots in New Zealand (McGill-Queens University Press with Otago University Press, 2013) co-authored with Brad Patterson and Jim McAloon and a large monogragh on the life of Richard John Seddon entitled Richard Seddon: King of God's Own (Penguin, 2014).
Publications
Patterson, B., Brooking, T., & McAloon, J. (2013). Unpacking the kists: The Scots in New Zealand. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press, 412p.
Authored Book - Research
Brooking, T. (2012). A model colony: Texts and the teaching of Scottish history in New Zealand schools, 1907-1945. Immigrants & Minorities, 30(1), 43-58. doi: 10.1080/02619288.2011.651330
Journal - Research Article
Brooking, T., & Pawson, E. (Eds.). (2011). Seeds of empire: The environmental transformation of New Zealand. London: I. B. Tauris, 296p.
Edited Book - Research
Brooking, T. (2011). Beyond the orderly appearance of productive rural land. In J. Ruru, J. Stephenson & M. Abbott (Eds.), Making our place: Exploring land-use tensions in Aotearoa New Zealand. (pp. 91-100). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Brooking, T. (2011). So different from the USA: Our late appreciation of wilderness. In M. Abbott & R. Reeve (Eds.), Wild heart: The possibility of wilderness in Aotearoa New Zealand. (pp. 123-131). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Tong, D. C., Brooking, T. H., & Love, R. (2011). The management of maxillofacial trauma during the Korean War: A coming of age of a specialty. Journal of Military & Veterans' Health, 19(2), 10-14.
Journal - Research Article
Brooking, T. (2009). 'Green Scots and golden Irish': The environmental impact of Scottish and Irish settlers in New Zealand: Some preliminary ruminations. Journal of Irish & Scottish Studies, 3(1).
Journal - Research Article
Pawson, E., & Brooking, T. (2008). Empires of grass: Towards an environmental history of New Zealand agriculture. British Review of New Zealand Studies, 17, 95-114.
Journal - Research Article
Tong, D., Bamji, A., Brooking, T., & Love, R. (2008). Plastic Kiwis: New Zealanders and the development of a specialty. Journal of Military & Veterans' Health, 17(1), 11-18.
Journal - Research Article
Wood, V., Brooking, T., & Perry, P. (2008). Pastoralism and politics: Reinterpreting contests for territory in Auckland Province, New Zealand, 1853-1864. Journal of Historical Geography, 34(2), 220-241.
Journal - Research Article
Brooking, T., & Pawson, E. (2007). Silences of grass: Retrieving the role of pasture plants in the development of New Zealand and the British Empire. Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, XXXV(3), 417-436.
Journal - Research Article
Star, P., & Brooking, T. (2007). The Department of Agriculture and pasture improvement, 1892-1914. New Zealand Geographer, 63, 192-201.
Journal - Research Article
Brooking, T. (2007). Applied science to the rescue. Environmental History, 12(2), 292-294.
Journal - Research Other
Brooking, T. (2006). Weaving the tartan into the flax: Networks, identities, and Scottish migration to nineteenth-century Otago, New Zealand. In A. McCarthy (Ed.), A global clan: Scottish migrant networks and identities since the eighteenth century. (pp. 183-202). London: Tauris Academic Studies.
Chapter in Book - Research
Brooking, T. (2006). Hoteo to Sacred Hill, Tutira and Central: In search of the grass roots of New Zealand history. In K. Gentry & G. McLean (Eds.), Heartlands: New Zealand historians write about places where history happened. (pp. 180-194). Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin Books.
Chapter in Book - Research
Star, P., & Brooking, T. (2006). Fescue to the rescue: Chewings fescue, paspalum, and the application of non-British experience to pastoral practice in New Zealand, 1880-1920. Agricultural History, 80(3), 312-335.
Journal - Research Article
Brooking, T. (2004). The history of New Zealand. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 250p.
Authored Book - Research
Brooking, T., & Coleman, J. (Eds.). (2003). The heather and the fern: Scottish migration & New Zealand settlement. Dunedin, New Zealand: University of Otago Press, 206p.
Edited Book - Research
Brooking, T. W. H., & Pawson, E. (2003). New Zealand environmental histories [Editorial]. Environment & History, 9(4, New Zealand), 375-378.
Journal - Research Other
Brooking, T., & Pawson, E. (Eds.). (2002). Environmental Histories of New Zealand (1 ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 342p.
Edited Book - Research
Brooking, T. (2002). Together apart: 231 years of troubled relationship. In R. Catley (Ed.), Moving Together: Drifting Apart? NZ-Australian Relations, Papers from the 36th Otago Foreign Policy School. (1 ed.) (pp. 23-41). Wellington: Dark Horse Publishing.
Chapter in Book - Research
Pawson, E., & Brooking, T. (2000). Landscape change and environmental histories. New Zealand Geographer, 56(2), 52-56.
Journal - Research Article
Brooking, T., Martin, D., Thomson, D., & James, H. B. (1999). The ties that bind: Persistance in a New World industrial suburb, 1902-1922. Social History, 24, 55-73.
Journal - Research Article
Brooking, T. (1996). Lands for the People? The Highland Clearances and the Colonisation of New Zealand: a Biography of John McKenzie. Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 363p.
Authored Book - Research
