‘In 1642 Maori discovered Europe.’ Vincent O’Malley’s account of the first meeting between Ngati Tumatakokiri and Abel Tasman’s crew sets the scene for how two peoples navigated fraught beginnings to find a ‘meeting place’ in pre-Treaty Aotearoa. Dr O’Malley tells the story of encounters between Maori and Pakeha in a turbulent landscape still shaped by Maori authority and evolving relationships. Early misunderstandings and violence gradually give way to mutual accommodation and adaptation. In this middle ground, people traded, intermarried, forged alliances and shaped each other’s ways of life – until this fragile balance was undone in the decades after 1840. Through people’s stories, O’Malley brings to life a time of extraordinary change.