| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Oceania and the Pacific Islands

Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwo‘ole Osorio. Dismembering Låhui: A History of the Hawaiian Nation to 1887. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 2002. Pp. x, 310.$21.95.

There is a long tradition of writing histories of the Hawaiian Islands. They are invariably the story of a "traditional" people who, from the late eighteenth century, faced a succession of Westerners: explorers, traders, missionaries, businessmen, administrators. The Hawaiian people responded in a range of ways, such as participating in the new trading economies, becoming literate and Christian, and organizing a monarchy that lasted through most of the nineteenth century, before the islands were finally annexed by the United States in 1898. 1

Interpretations of this narrative have ranged widely. At one end of the spectrum, older imperial views emphasize and applaud Western initiative and economic and political developments that transformed a "primitive" place and its peoples into a modern, prosperous country. In more recent, postcolonial times, it has been fashionable to emphasize the dark side of colonization, highlighting the disastrous consequences for the Hawaiian people of Western intrusion. It is a tale of "fatal impact" whereby disease, massive depopulation, and racism cause biological, social, economic, political, and spiritual ruination.Such views have now become the new historical orthodoxy and help to provide an underpinning for the modern indigenous Hawaiian sovereignty movement. . . .

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