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A review by undertheteacup
Island World: A History of Hawai'i and the United States by Gary Y. Okihiro
3.0
I loved the sections on Polynesian navigation methods, as well as the Hawaiian diaspora's participation in international trade, the war of 1812, and the American Civil War. I'd had no idea just how many people from different places were coming together on the whale boats, in the fur trade to China, and in the colonization of what are now the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia.
At the same time, I don't think the text really bore out Okihiro's goal of bringing the Hawaiian Island from margin to center, both methodologically and in his content. I wholly agree with the argument that islands should not be treated as marginal in geography and history, and therefore I was disappointed not to see more material centered from the Hawaiians' own perspective. There's probably a dearth of primary sources, but I still think Okihiro could have tried harder. His main method seems to have been 'here's how this Hawaiian stuff influenced mainland stuff and became really ubiquitous, but the very nature of empire is to co-opt and incorporate pieces of native cultures divorced from their native meanings.
He talked about how terrible the conditions were in many of the trades Hawaiians participated in: whaling, guano mining, etc. So then why did so many Hawaiians flock to them in droves? A little more contextual grounding in the conditions of Hawaiian life on the islands would have been nice.
At the same time, I don't think the text really bore out Okihiro's goal of bringing the Hawaiian Island from margin to center, both methodologically and in his content. I wholly agree with the argument that islands should not be treated as marginal in geography and history, and therefore I was disappointed not to see more material centered from the Hawaiians' own perspective. There's probably a dearth of primary sources, but I still think Okihiro could have tried harder. His main method seems to have been 'here's how this Hawaiian stuff influenced mainland stuff and became really ubiquitous, but the very nature of empire is to co-opt and incorporate pieces of native cultures divorced from their native meanings.
He talked about how terrible the conditions were in many of the trades Hawaiians participated in: whaling, guano mining, etc. So then why did so many Hawaiians flock to them in droves? A little more contextual grounding in the conditions of Hawaiian life on the islands would have been nice.