Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands
by Gavan Daws

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Book Reviews of Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands

Book Review: Trouble In Paradise
Summary: 5 Stars

Through no fault of the author in any historical fiction the emphasis is on the fiction, as it should be; as a result the history is bound to suffer in some form. This is a disservice to both history and the authors who choose to write about it, especially if people then believe "this is what happened, and how."

Daws' book should be the book everyone who visits Hawaii should read at some point, especially if they have read Mitchner. Unlike Mitchner, the history Daws tells begins not with pre-history which to a certain degree can be sketchy and speculative at best (native Hawaiians had no written language, rather their stories/legends/beliefs/accomplishments were told and passed on orally from generation to generation via complex and myth laden chants). Rather Daws chooses to begin his story with the "discovery" of Europeans by the Hawaiians to turn a phrase. The history begins with the arrival of the ill-fated, but well intentioned, Captain Cook, as he stumbles into the Hawaiian islands in the late eighteenth century while looking for something else.

As in Alan Moorehead's The Fatal Impact, this is where the real story begins, as this cultural collision portends ill for the Hawaiians as they then become even more belligerent eventually uniting under a single king with the help of a few well intentioned outsiders along.

Again as in Moorehead the act of discovery becomes an act of destruction. Whalers, missionaries, planters, immigrants (Japan, China, Portugal, Philippines etc.), politicians, and various and sundry hangers on descend on the island to carve and shape what was once perfect into something much different. Something much changed and still evolving, like the islands themselves.

All of this ultimately results in the overturning of the monarchy in the interests of what's best for Hawaii, but not necessarily the native Hawaiians.

Shoal of Time is a compelling read. The full story is fascinating, disturbing, enlightening and sad as the Hawaiians are pushed out of their own history into some shadow existence where they tentatively remain today.

Mitchner got some of it right. Daws gets it all right.

Summary of Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands

Starting with the Western discovery of the islands in 1778--on through the days of the whalers, the missionary period, the plantation era with its vast numbers of Oriental immigrants, to the fall of the Hawaiian monarchy, annexation by the United States, and the long, slow move to statehood--the characters and events of Hawaii's past shine with new vitality and immediacy.

United States Books

• Subjects > History > Americas > United States