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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
A nice introduction to the history of American - Hawaii.
I wanted to like this one, but it skipped around so much, and was oddly repetitive in places, so I just can't give it more than two stars.
A little hard to follow. Perhaps it was the long Hawaiian names or that is just kinda dragged on but either way, it was a solid read but perhaps less laugh-inducing than some of her other tomes.
Really made me want to visit Hawaii. But I read [b:Broken Trust: Greed, Mismanagement, And Political Manipulation at America's Largest Charitable Trust|1187451|Broken Trust Greed, Mismanagement, And Political Manipulation at America's Largest Charitable Trust (A Latitude 20 Book)|Samuel P. King|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1181748611s/1187451.jpg|1175437] this summer and I really wish I had read this one first. A good primer on Hawaiian history and how it became part of the United States.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. I "read" the audiobook version. If you are familiar with Sarah Vowell, you know she has a voice that might be an acquired taste. I acquired it quite some time ago through her stories on This American Life and other public radio programs. Vowell's retelling of the history of Hawaii from the time of the first American missionaries to the overthrow of the queen is illuminating and surprising, and often very funny. A mixture of archival research and contemporary interviews inform the book, and I am embarrassed by how much I DON'T know about this part of American history. But glad to have been schooled by Ms. Vowell.
informative
This book was hilarious! I've never laughed so much at history. I had seen her promoting this book on a talk show, so I wanted to check out the audio book version, which has a star-studded list of guest readers. She makes the history of Hawaiian independence and annexation by the US very relatable and interesting. I can't wait to read more of her books and now I really want to go to Hawaii! :)
3.5 stars. Vowell's style is funny and easy-to-read, but don't be fooled by the fast pace: She actually crams quite a bit of factual information into this slender book, which tops out under 250 pages. I blazed through it in a weekend, although part of this was probably due to my prior pseudo-familiarity with the subject. Vowell's sarcastic tone and personal anecdotes appealed to me and set this volume apart from few other nonfiction books I have read about Hawaiian history, although her tone can sometimes be a bit flippant given the serious subject.
Vowell focuses on a narrow, but incredibly important, period of Hawaii's history, stretching from the arrival of the missionaries in the 1820s to the islands' annexation by the U.S. in 1898. She looks at how the white immigrants (a.k.a. "unfamiliar fishes") irrevocably shaped Hawaii's development and caused its annexation and statehood.
This book is an approachable, enjoyable introduction to Hawaii's turbulent history, but I can't help but wonder if Vowell's style would be better suited to a less complex subject. Hawaiian history is incredibly complicated, and I had a hard time absorbing her constant litany of facts, even though I was already familiar with the general outline of events. Vowell's breezy style encourages you to keep moving along, which makes it difficult to slow down and take in what you're reading. Both in tone and format, this volume reads more like an extended essay than a book, as there are no chapter breaks.
I think this book would be an easy introduction to the imperialist takeover of Hawaii, but I'd only recommend it in conjunction with another, more meaty history book to be read afterwards. I've already started reading [b:Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings and America's First Imperial Adventure|11574167|Lost Kingdom Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings and America's First Imperial Adventure|Julia Flynn Siler|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328824062s/11574167.jpg|16515137], which focuses on the same time period but goes more in-depth, so hopefully that will help fill out my knowledge of this time period. Unfamiliar Fishes is a great nonfiction vacation read (especially if you're going to Hawaii!) but it doesn't offer enough detail to stand alone as a comprehensive introduction to this time period.
Vowell focuses on a narrow, but incredibly important, period of Hawaii's history, stretching from the arrival of the missionaries in the 1820s to the islands' annexation by the U.S. in 1898. She looks at how the white immigrants (a.k.a. "unfamiliar fishes") irrevocably shaped Hawaii's development and caused its annexation and statehood.
This book is an approachable, enjoyable introduction to Hawaii's turbulent history, but I can't help but wonder if Vowell's style would be better suited to a less complex subject. Hawaiian history is incredibly complicated, and I had a hard time absorbing her constant litany of facts, even though I was already familiar with the general outline of events. Vowell's breezy style encourages you to keep moving along, which makes it difficult to slow down and take in what you're reading. Both in tone and format, this volume reads more like an extended essay than a book, as there are no chapter breaks.
I think this book would be an easy introduction to the imperialist takeover of Hawaii, but I'd only recommend it in conjunction with another, more meaty history book to be read afterwards. I've already started reading [b:Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings and America's First Imperial Adventure|11574167|Lost Kingdom Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings and America's First Imperial Adventure|Julia Flynn Siler|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328824062s/11574167.jpg|16515137], which focuses on the same time period but goes more in-depth, so hopefully that will help fill out my knowledge of this time period. Unfamiliar Fishes is a great nonfiction vacation read (especially if you're going to Hawaii!) but it doesn't offer enough detail to stand alone as a comprehensive introduction to this time period.
Could've used a primer on Hawaiian history before jumping into this piece. Still, I learned a lot and there was much to surprise me.
Oh Sarah Vowell, I need you to write more books. More books that are possibly a little more organized than this one.
I love Sarah Vowell. If I could have four people to dinner solely for the purpose of chewing over US history, she'd be one of them. I'd sit her across from longtime Seattle columnist William Speidel and make popcorn. Because Sarah Vowell is not just snarky and well spoken, she also knows her stuff, and it's obvious from this book that she knows the business end of a research carrel and can don white conservationist gloves and pore over arcane and crumbling historical documents with the best of them.
And it's precisely this combination that I think gets me in trouble with this book.
Meticulously balanced and well researched. Chock full of detail. Each and every step the New England missionaries ever took in Hawaii has been verified and catalogued. And there's just not enough snark to balance it all out.
The topic itself is fascinating, because between McKinley and Cleveland, we had some sketchy-ass US presidents running our foreign policy in the 19th century. And I love reading about their sketchiness, if only so I could be That Person during the entirety of the Bush administration, shaking my head and laughing mirthlessly about white vs black gold and history repeating itself (remember, I'm the third of four people at my US history smackdown dinner). I love minutiae.
But.
But but but. I love my snark as well. The book feels unbalanced. It dwells almost entirely in the past, with brief snippets of Vowell's current-day visits to Hawaii, and her acerbic interjections become fewer and fewer as the book goes on, which is weird, because the longer the missionaries stayed, the worse they made things, which should be ground zero for all the snarkiness.
Particularly problematic is the ending, where after Harrison is spectacularly unsuccessful at pulling the trigger on Hawaii's annexation, by Vowell's own admission, things kind of snowball in a whole host of underhanded ways. It's the best part of the book, and it's entirely too short. The manner in which Grover Cleveland dilly-dallied on Hawaii, while Lodge threw away portions of the Declaration of Independence and Mahan threw down sea power as an ultimatum -- that whole section of what was going on in Hawaii could've been a whole book to itself.
And I'm not here to say it should've taken up more time to the exclusion of the other half of the story, which concerns the native peoples of Hawaii and their missionary troubles. Quite the opposite. I'm saying the whole thing was too darn short. And not snarky enough.
Come on. Teddy Roosevelt was involved. The snark writes itself.
There's a moment where Vowell is in Honolulu, and she's standing on the balcony where Jack Lord stood, under his hair, the both of them staring steely-eyed out at the Pacific, and... then Vowell goes back inside and goes and has breakfast with her nephew. Wha-wha-wha?
Come back, Sarah Vowell. We miss you.
I love Sarah Vowell. If I could have four people to dinner solely for the purpose of chewing over US history, she'd be one of them. I'd sit her across from longtime Seattle columnist William Speidel and make popcorn. Because Sarah Vowell is not just snarky and well spoken, she also knows her stuff, and it's obvious from this book that she knows the business end of a research carrel and can don white conservationist gloves and pore over arcane and crumbling historical documents with the best of them.
And it's precisely this combination that I think gets me in trouble with this book.
Meticulously balanced and well researched. Chock full of detail. Each and every step the New England missionaries ever took in Hawaii has been verified and catalogued. And there's just not enough snark to balance it all out.
The topic itself is fascinating, because between McKinley and Cleveland, we had some sketchy-ass US presidents running our foreign policy in the 19th century. And I love reading about their sketchiness, if only so I could be That Person during the entirety of the Bush administration, shaking my head and laughing mirthlessly about white vs black gold and history repeating itself (remember, I'm the third of four people at my US history smackdown dinner). I love minutiae.
But.
But but but. I love my snark as well. The book feels unbalanced. It dwells almost entirely in the past, with brief snippets of Vowell's current-day visits to Hawaii, and her acerbic interjections become fewer and fewer as the book goes on, which is weird, because the longer the missionaries stayed, the worse they made things, which should be ground zero for all the snarkiness.
Particularly problematic is the ending, where after Harrison is spectacularly unsuccessful at pulling the trigger on Hawaii's annexation, by Vowell's own admission, things kind of snowball in a whole host of underhanded ways. It's the best part of the book, and it's entirely too short. The manner in which Grover Cleveland dilly-dallied on Hawaii, while Lodge threw away portions of the Declaration of Independence and Mahan threw down sea power as an ultimatum -- that whole section of what was going on in Hawaii could've been a whole book to itself.
And I'm not here to say it should've taken up more time to the exclusion of the other half of the story, which concerns the native peoples of Hawaii and their missionary troubles. Quite the opposite. I'm saying the whole thing was too darn short. And not snarky enough.
Come on. Teddy Roosevelt was involved. The snark writes itself.
There's a moment where Vowell is in Honolulu, and she's standing on the balcony where Jack Lord stood, under his hair, the both of them staring steely-eyed out at the Pacific, and... then Vowell goes back inside and goes and has breakfast with her nephew. Wha-wha-wha?
Come back, Sarah Vowell. We miss you.