James L. Haley

Very readable and yet sufficiently detailed. I was aware that Hawaii lost its independence o the US against the will of the Hawaiin royalty and e majority of native Hawaiins, but Haley does a good job of retracing the history of Hawaii from the first contacts with Europeans through annexation by the US. He seems to take a more tolerant view of the Christian missionaries than many recent historians and he also notes that with Vritain, France and the US all interested in acquiring control of show more Hawaii, maintaining complete autonomy may not have been possible. But Haley is open about his biases and notes where he disagrees with other historians. Uses lots of primary source material and writes in a narrative style that kept me engaged. show less

Jack London, the man who several years before Mark Twain’s death unseated Twain to become America’s favorite author, was a man of contrasts. Illegitimately born into a poverty stricken environment, for much of his adult life London would employ a full domestic staff, including a personal valet. Even as an avowed and outspoken advocate of socialism, he saw nothing wrong with living the luxurious lifestyle his personal labor eventually earned him. He was a staunch defender of the rights of show more “native peoples” but is said to have been a “racialist,” believing that no good would come from a mixing of the races.

London’s era was one still very much influenced by the sexual mores of the Victorian Age but he was always sexually active, even when married, and made little effort to explain his actions to either of his wives. He enjoyed the company of children but was never close to the two daughters he fathered by his first wife, allowing them effectively to slip out of his life. Those who knew him considered London a “spiritual” man, but he detested the way that religion helped maintain what he saw as an illegitimate and unjust society and considered himself an atheist. He was capable of superb writing but was willing to do as much “hackwork” as it took to support his lifestyle.

Even in death, London was a mystery. That he died in his sleep at age 40 is not disputed; the cause of his death, however, is still open to discussion. Did London die of an accidental overdose of morphine or, as many suspect, was he so depressed that he decided to take his own life that night. He was known to be upset about his health and the shape he was in but adamantly refused to change the lifestyle that was rapidly killing him. Even had he not died as he did, it is unlikely that Jack London would ever have seen his fifties.

All of this is explored in Wolf: The Lives of Jack London, James Haley’s recent Jack London biography. Hayley approaches London’s life by dividing it into segments based on the various occupations that occupied him during his 40 years. Those occupations range from what London called “work beast” (when, as a youth, he worked in places such as a pickle factory for ten cents an hour) to pirate, seal hunter, hobo, student, gold prospector, writer, muckraker, war correspondent, sailor and rancher. Each of these jobs is given its own chapter treatment; other chapters include those on London the “lover” and London the “celebrity.”

Haley’s technique works well to explain how Jack London managed to reinvent himself as a world-class author. This approach also puts a human face on a man who has too often in the past been stereotyped simply as a socialist/communist who happened to write very good novels or as a man’s man who traveled to the wilds of Alaska and the South Seas in search of new topics for his books. The real Jack London, as it turns out was more motivated by finding a way to make a living with his mind rather than his back than by anything else. That he succeeded to such a degree is a tale resembling those stories that so enthralled London himself as a young reader in San Francisco.

The odds were heavily against Jack London, but he made it. James Haley tells how London did it in a very readable, and memorable, biography that is sure to please fans of literary biography.

Rated at: 5.0 show less

When I was attending UH at Manoa, I took a class in Hawaiian history and was taught that the haole oligarchy brought in many people with different languages to prevent labor from organizing. Divide and conquer. This book informs on the difficult way statehood was forced on the islanders as their voting rights were systematically taken away and competing nations for control (Japan, in the end) made the alignment with the United States strategically necessary. From the perspective of the U.S., show more that is.
However, the author of this history does not gloss over Hawaii's history. He depicts the pre-colonial islanders as having as rich, lurid, and occasionally horrifying a history as many other cultures in the world. I particularly noted similarities with the Aztecs in Mexico, but certain historical European horrors also come to mind.
In my opinion, the book is reasonably well-balanced, and I can recommend it to anyone wanting to learn about the history of a beautiful island. show less

Still a farmer at heart, Bliven Putnam does his duty and goes back to sea in a small sloop. Fretting over the impressment of his friend Sam challenges his concentration for his naval career. He does manage to be present when Old Ironsides becomes the nickname for the frigate USS Constitution as well as during both of her victories over British warships. A good insightful story about events little known to those who read about naval history during the Age of Sail.