Synopses & Reviews
Brilliantly mixing geology, folklore, music, cultural commentary, and history, Gary Y. Okihiro overturns the customary narrative in which the United States acts upon and dominates Hawai'i. Instead, Island World depicts the islands' press against the continent, endowing America's story with fresh meaning. Okihiro's reconsidered history reveals Hawaiians fighting in the Civil War, sailing on nineteenth-century New England ships, and living in pre-gold rush California. He points to Hawai'i's lingering effect on twentieth-century American cultureand#151;from surfboards, hula, sports, and films, to art, imagination, and racial perspectivesand#151;even as the islands themselves succumb slowly to the continental United States. In placing Hawai'i at the center of the national story, Island World rejects the premise that continents comprise "natural" states while islands are "tiny spaces," without significance, to be acted upon by continents. An astonishingly compact tour de force, this book not only revises the way we think about islands, oceans, and continents, it also recasts the way we write about space and time.
Review
and#8220;All will come away intrigued and enlightened.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;A startling perspective and a compelling one.and#8221;
Synopsis
In the decades after World War II, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilian contractors across Asia and the Pacific found work through the U.S. military. Recently liberated from colonial rule, these workers were drawn to the opportunities the military offered and became active participants of the U.S. empire, most centrally during the U.S. war in Vietnam. Simeon Man uncovers the little-known histories of Filipinos, South Koreans, and Asian Americans who fought in Vietnam, revealing how U.S. empire was sustained through overlapping projects of colonialism and race making. Through their military deployments, Man argues, these soldiers took part in the making of a new Pacific world--a decolonizing Pacific--in which the imperatives of U.S. empire collided with insurgent calls for decolonization, producing often surprising political alliances, imperial tactics of suppression, and new visions of radical democracy.
Synopsis
"This quirky, brilliant book gives the reader the thrill of cultural history done well. Okihiro undertakes a conventional topic in a jarring way, avoiding the assumption of set boundaries of nations and human societies."and#151;Henry Yu, author of
Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern America"This beautifully written book integrates the history of Hawai'i into that of the U.S. better than any other I have ever read." and#151;Patricia Seed, author of American Pentimento: The Invention of Indians and the Pursuit of Riches
About the Author
Gary Y. Okihiro is Professor of International and Public Affairs and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University. His most recent books are Common Ground: Reimagining American History and Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment, with Linda Gordon.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Regions of Fire
2. Oceania's Expanse
3. Pagan Priest
4. Schooling for Subservience
5. Hawaiian Diaspora
6. Poetry in Motion
7. Islands and Continents
Notes
Bibliography
Index