25 Jul 2024

Jacqueline Leckie: The story of depression in New Zealand

From Nights, 9:30 pm on 25 July 2024

Old Black Cloud published by Massey University Press is a new book telling the cultural history of mental depression in New Zealand for the first time.

The book traverses New Zealand's lonely colonial frontier, the different cures and institutions created for depression, and the way mental health was understood in the pre-colonial South Pacific.

Victoria University of Wellington esearcher and health historian Jacqueline Leckey is the author, and she joins Emile Donovan.

A composite image showing Jacqueline and the cover of the book "OLD BLACK CLOUD". On the left, Jacqueline smiles at the camera, wearing glasses and an orange blazer. On the right, a book cover showing a finely detailed black-and-white woodcut of a small house in a valley with stormclouds overhead and beams of light shining through. The book title is "OLD BLACK CLOUD - A CULTURAL HISTORY OF MENTAL DEPRESSION IN AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND".

Old Black Cloud, by researcher and historian Jacqueline Leckie, is published through Massey University Press. Photo: Supplied

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