Drawing upon the author's ongoing examination of the archaeology of missionization in New Zealand, Pewhairangi also places it in international comparative context. When a small group of three English families landed in the bay below Rangihoua pa in 1814, under the protection of its chief and inhabitants, the story told in Pewhairangi began. It is the story of New Zealand's first permanent European settlement at Hohi, of the church mission that it represented, and of the other mission communities subsequently established in the Bay of Islands at Kerikeri, Paihia, Te Puna, and Waimate. It tells of Ngapuhi and Pakeha engagement, as neighbors, over four decades: the chiefs, the missionaries, the mastermind Samuel Marsden, and the wives and children of all these men. The book also records the multiple comings and goings in the Bay of the amateur and professional artists whose works supply many of the book's fine illustrations.