Customer Reviews

Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Hawaii has a rich history involving chiefs, and kings, and wars, and international diplomacy.

In "Shoal of Time," Gavan Daws relates this history in interesting, non-biased detail. Daws gives a quick sketch of Hawaii before James Cook arrived. He talks about the way the Hawaiians greeted the ships and gives snips from journal entries.

When it comes to the reign of the Kamehamehas, Daws does a wonderful job of showing the practical brilliance of how Kamehameha the Great and Liholiho mastered the game of diplomacy--allying themselves with England, France, and the United States in ways that prolonged their independence.

Daws also does a masterful job of showing how the once innocuous missionary families brought about the ultimate fall of the monarchy. Few authors can relate this story without showing passionate bias, but Daws succeeds. (Both Hawaiian activists and members of old missionary families will be offended, I think.) Daws avoids the common prattfall of painting King Kaulakaua and Queen Liliuokalani as saints, and Stanford Dole and Loren Thurston as demons.

Some have complained that Daws's book ends with statehood. Books need to end somewhere. Statehood was the right place to end because Hawaiian statehood is an entirely different epic.

Daws's book is a nearly perfect introduction to Hawaiian history--a survey book that covers all of the bases. After finishing this book you may want to move on to more detailed books on the fall of the monarchy (see the works of R.S. Kuykendall), ancient Hawaii (see "Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii" by S. M. Kamakau), and the attack on Pearl Harbor (see "At Dawn We Slept" by Prange and Goldstein).

I absolutely recommend "Shoal of Time" for anybody curious about Hawaiian history. I especially recommend this book to tourists coming to the islands for the first time. Reading this book could improve a visit. Knowing the significance of Iolani Palace and other sites cannot help but improve your visit.

If you are visiting Oahu, I also recommend purchasing a copy of "A Walk Through Old Honolulu" by the late O.A. Bushnell. This long out of print pamphlet gives a concise history of the buildings that speckle a small walkable distance in downtown Honolulu.

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Anyone who has read James Mitchner's Hawaii, which includes just about anyone who has visited the islands, and is in need of a historical fix (as in correction) ought to read Gavan Daws excellent Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands. Daws has done what Mitchner could not with his admirably popular, historically inadequate, sprawling epic, told the whole story.

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.

An excellent writing style by a knowledgable author combine here to give the reader a feeling for how and why Hawai'i moved from isolation to its current status. Rights and wrongs are both well presented leaving one to form their own conclusions as to what led to the nation of Hawai'i to become part of the United States. This is not just the story of that event, but of many events from the time Hawai'i was discovered by the Europeans up through statehood in the US. Highly recommended.

This is an excellent book. Easy to read, extremely informative and clearly presented. It is by far and away the best single volume work on the rich, textured history of Hawaii. This should be the starting place for anyone interested in the majestic and tragic past of the Hawaiian Isles.

Trying to write a history of the Hawaiian Islands---or any other place, for that matter---is like trying to teach the history of the British Empire in one three-hour college course; in other words, impossible! You've got to make hard choices about what to include, and what to leave out, and your choices often speak volumes about you as a writer of history and about the audience you intend to reach. Gavan Daws excellent book, Shoal of Time, does an admirable job in presenting as much history of Hawaii as possible in a manageable single volume that is (relatively) free from overt bias. He starts with the "discovery" of the islands by Captain Cook in the 1700's, moves through the Kamehameha monarchs and their often bloody battles (this section is one of the book's highlights), continues with the work of the missionaries (for better or worse, sometimes with tragic consequences), importation of oriental workers to help with the great sugar plantations, and finally finishes with Hawaii as a territory, WWII, and statehood. Dawes is mostly concerned in telling the various political intrigues that are woven throughout Hawaiian history: monarchs vs. monarchs, missionaries vs. "hedonists", foreigners vs natives and others; by concentrating his efforts in this direction, he accurately depicts the history of the islands as one fraught with controversies over citizenship, ownership, and how the fledgling territory and state is viewed by the world at large. Both Great Britain and the United States play significant roles and each at one time lays claim to the tiny republic; Dawes must be given special accolades for presenting the (at times) unsavory annexation attempts by both nations as factually and as completely free from bias as possible. An admirable job of storytelling, yet there are one or two subject matters that Dawes could have at least touched upon that would have made Shoal more complete, including: (1)ancient, pre-Cook Hawaii, (2) more discussion about islands other than Oahu and Maui, which take up close to 90% of the book, and (3)the rise of Hawaii as a tourist and cultural mecca, in the 1950's and beyond, and how such a rise will affect the future of the islands and the growing sovereignty movement. In short, Shoal of Time is a very fine work, and should be one of your first purchases when assembling your library of island history and Hawaiiana.

This book is a detailed academic history of Hawaii, focusing on political forces. It begins with Captain Cook's first sighting of the islands in 1778, and continues through statehood. Topics covered include: Kamehameha I, missionaries, the whaling economy, the sugar economy, immigration, annexation, and World War II. In preparing this volume, Daws referred to thousands of primary sources, some of which are listed in end notes at the back of the book. There is also an extensive index.

Parts of the text are extremely detailed, so much so that it sometimes becomes hard to discern the big picture. At the same time, Daws doesn't cover every development, leaving some questions open about exactly what happened, why and when. The story is told from a Western point of view, and some Hawaiians may find this bias off-putting. Nevertheless, bringing all the threads together as Daws has done here is a major achievement, and the book is well worth consulting for those with a serious interest in Hawaiian history.

It is true that Daws has a western scholar's perspective, he is, after all, a western scholar. This hardly invalidates the history he has written any more than it would invalidate a history of the continental U.S. not written from the perspective of the native people. Similarly, it is unfair to criticize a book because it is not all-inclusive. This book outlines the history of Hawaii between Cook's discovery and statehood. Anyone who would like a history of Hawaii before 1778, or a history of Hawaii from a Polynesian perspective, or would like more details of people and events from this period should read a lot more books. Kuykendall's three-volume History of the Hawaiian Kingdom (available at the University of Hawaii Press) is wonderful and should probably be considered essential reading for anyone interested in this period of Hawaiian history but at over 1700 pages it's a bit of a slog (Kuykendall's one-volume history of Hawaii from pre-discovery to statehood might be a good alternative but I have not read it so I cannot say).

The Shoal of Time is extremely well written. The author's dry wit and clever turns of phrase make this very enjoyable reading. I can see where it would be possible for someone to read this book and not understand the use of irony and sarcasm. When Daws says something like, "Toward the end of his life Lorrin Thurston reviewed the accomplishments of the `mission boys' and he found, unsurprisingly, that they were a `splendid body of men'", he certainly doesn't mean that he himself thinks they were a splendid body of men. It is obvious throughout that Daws has no great admiration for the missionaries and their descendants. The businessmen who overthrew the monarchy are portrayed as hypocritical, self-serving schemers who paid lip service to Christian virtues while assuming that the poor of the world were put on God's Earth to supply them with laborers. They believed that what was best for themselves was best for everyone and that they were entitled to their wealth by way of their superior intellects (and race). In other words, they were pretty much the same as right-wing businessmen today. As we watch modern-day developers build multi-million dollar condos along the beaches and as a new wave of wealthy haoles takes over the islands, the primary lesson presented in the Shoal of Time should be well learned: The one thing at which the rich excel is taking care of their own interests and you should not expect them to do otherwise.

We arrived on Oahu June of 2004 for a 3 year military tour. While one of the critics indicates this book does not fully explain the (in my own words) hostile take over of the Hawaiian monarchy, he also does not tell you that Hawaiian history while plentiful is not well published.

Unlike the American Civil war for which there are hundreds and thousands of volumes of work, there are just a handful of well written published Hawaiian history books. This is why the reviewer did not also suggest alternatives.

I was stunned by the limited amount of material available to read. And for the reviewer who criticized the incomplete research of the Hawaiian newspapers - I look forward to reading the book you write from this research. I hope the next decade brings more and more published work of this great island nation.

Shoal of Time does what few other books do. It gives a reasonably thorough look at Hawaiian history. It is a great place to start for those interested in Hawaiian history and a great diving board for those wishing to write their own works.

Again hundreds if not thousands of books on the American Civil war from 1861-1865. A handful of Hawaiian history books for the entire period of history.

I would celebrate if the the Sovereignty movement produced some well written books of their own. Instead, during our three years living and traveling throughout the islands, it was limited to a few newspaper articles and some protest type gatherings. There is a definite voice among the Hawaiian Nation movement, but one that is not clearly understood by the rest of the 49 states.

No one book can be all things to all people. This one is an excellent "history" book. Daws tells the story of Hawaii with his voice.

Hawaii is a story which isn't finished and the richness of its history leaves plenty of room for others to pick up their pen and bring it to life for those of us who are readers.

Everyone I know who has read Daws' book seems to agree with the other reviewers at this site that this is an excellent presentation of Hawaiian history. I've bought this book as presents for family and friends, and I keep going back to my dog-eared copy to re-read certain sections, such as the narrative of the infamous Charlton Affair.

One criticism I might offer is that the book was written in 1989. An update would be appreciated.

Daws' Shoal of Time is a frequently-read introductory piece to Hawai'i's history, but readers must beware of the slanted historiography which fill its pages. Daws begins with James Cook's visit to Hawaii; yet Hawai'i has 2000 years of history predating this European visit, and native sources (notably the scholar Samuel M. Kamakau, in the original Hawaiian language editions) indicate that Cook may have not been the first non-Hawaiian to 'discover' Hawai'i. The decision to start his history at 1778 erases the preceding 1,778 years of lives, deaths, loves, politics, etc.

Similarly, Daws ignores nearly all of the Hawaiian language sources, including more than ninety Hawaiian Language newspapers published from the 1830s to the 1940s, in which the vast record of the Hawaiian people is recorded. In pursuing this monolingual history of a multicultural place, Daws depicts Native Hawaiians as passive participants in the vicissitudes of history. He misses, for example, the thousands of petitioners rising up against American annexation of Hawai'i in 1897 and 1898. He also writes in celebratory tones about the build-up of American military in Hawai'i throughout the 20th century, without an analysis into the powerful political economy of dependency and militarism which is the backdrop for this period.

Hawai'i's history is very complex, and deserves a more careful reading than Daws is willing to provide here. Instead, his popular book is an apologia for American empire, without an appreciation for the voices of empire's discontented islanders.