• Reading reduced by two grade levels: chapters covering unification of the kingdom, contact with Westerners, the Mahele, the influence of the sugar industry, the overthrow of the monarchy, and other topics rewritten for easier readability
• Challenging vocabulary defined in the margins and compiled in a glossary at the end of the text
• Subject matter adapted for a one-semester course
• New color illustrations, including paintings by Herb Kawainui Käne, never-before-published portraits of monarchs from the Hoffstot Collection at Kawaiaha'o Church, vintage postcards, and "then and now" photographs
• Over two hundred photographs, drawings, and primary source documents from local archives and collections
• A pictorial timeline showing the relationship of events in Hawai'i to those in the United States
• A bibliography of recent related sources, older interpretive writings, and primary sources
• Appendixes covering the formation of the islands, Hawai‘i's geography, and Polynesian migration
• New workbook with teacher's answer key as a companion to the new textbook
This history of the Hawaiian kingdom, its people, and its government was written by educators in the schools of Hawai‘i. The original book by Norris W. Potter and Lawrence M. Kasdon, Hawaii: Our Island State, was revised and updated by Ann Rayson, Associate Professor at the University of Hawai‘i, to fulfill the need for a textbook specifically covering the historical period from the Western discovery of Hawai'i by Captain James Cook in 1778 to the annexation of Hawai‘i by the United States in 1898. This revision, titled The Hawaiian Monarchy, has been in print since 1983.
