Julia Flynn Siler

Absolutely fascinating. At least to me as a big California wine drinker. So many things we take for granted were Robert Mondavi innovations. He was a huge influence on the region, improving quality and helping to establish California as a fine wine appellation. I am truly grateful. Also, unbeknownst to me, I bought and started listening to this just after Robert Mondavi died on May 16, 2008. An eerie little touch.

What struck me most is the fact that the Mondavi family seems genetically show more programmed to fight with itself. No one can get along, reach an accord or even a compromise. I have no sympathy for what happened to them (Robert’s branch especially) since they brought it on themselves. Even in the end after the RM Winery had been sold and the Mondavi family forced out, they could have purchased the Oakville winery if they could have stopped fighting long enough to get their shit together. Alas, they couldn’t. Even amidst their hand-wringing and whining about losing their family legacy, they couldn’t. Amazing.

The author does a great job of giving us facts without creating monsters or heroes. No one gets special treatment and no one is dragged through the mud. She gives equal time for kudos and for dressing down and there’s plenty of both. show less

"They came to do good and did well."

A fascinating and detailed narrative account of the final years of the Hawaiian Monarchy. Siler does a quick run through of the first western contact, Captain Cook, and then the arrival of the missionaries, who brought not only religion, but reading, writing and printing presses. Their decendants, however, had more commerce than God in mind, and big sugar, by various means, managed to eventually gain control of the islands. The book focuses on King show more Kalakaua, Claus Spreckels and the descendants of the missionaries, the passing of the Bayonet Constitution, the overthrow and imprisonment of Queen Lili'uokalani, and her final attempts to regain her throne and her Kingdom before the islands were eventually annexed by the US in 1898. A moving, sympathetic story, well told. show less

I will start by saying that I was in the mood to read a good, solid history book, and this definitely fit the bill. In addition, I did not know much about the history of Hawaii prior to it being annexed by the U.S., and this book did a great job in filling that gap for me. The neat thing about reading it is that it "reads" like a fiction piece in the sense that it has a good narrative, and it will engage you.

Siler's book tells the tale of Hawaii from the time when Cook landed on the islands show more that were known as the Sandwich Islands up until the point when annexation occurs. It is a very interesting tale, but it is also a tale of intrigue, a lot of political play and maneuvering, and often tragic moments. Indeed the title is very appropriate for in annexation a kingdom was lost. That the U.S. can brag it has a royal palace on U.S. soil does not convey the conflicts and imperialistic schemes that came to pass for that to happen. In this regard, the book also provides a lesson in early American imperialism. This is a time when the famous declaration of "the frontier is closed" happened in the U.S., so Americans were seeking new places to expand in terms of territory and trade. The Hawaiian Islands were a very alluring place to expand. Well, they were alluring to many; even some in the U.S. did debate on whether to annex or not, often depending on what interests they were trying to safeguard. The big interest that seems to loom large in the story is that of sugar. Siler shows us how the sugar trade played such a central part in the story, shaping the monarchy as well as the drive to annexation.

The book has a simple organization. It runs two parallel stories, so to speak. One is the story of the royal dynasties leading to Queen Lili'u, the last monarch of the Kalakua House and the last monarch of Hawaii. The other story is the story of Hawaii and the sugar barons who shaped the nation and the economy of Hawaii in ways that no armed force could do. In essence, the sugar interests were the real rulers and owners of Hawaii, even to the point that the monarchy was in heavy debt to them. And yet, towards the end, Queen Lili'u finds a very unlikely ally, one I did not expect, but when you realize much of this is about watching out for your interests, the alliance made sense. I will let you read the book to find out who it was.

The book displays excellent research. It is clear the author did a lot of work and spent a lot of time in archives seeking out material to write the history. She draws heavily on the diary of the Queen, a woman who was intelligent, cultured, and a song composer who was committed to being a true chiefess to her people. The author also draws on various other sources as well. The book features extensive endnotes and bibliography (in fact, this research material does take about a third of the book at the end). The book also features a good set of photos and illustrations as supplementary material. I think the visual materials provide a nice visual element to the story.

Maybe the only reason I gave it four stars out of five is because it left me wanting more. What happens after annexation? There was a bit of closure in the epilogue though. Maybe that is another topic for another book? I will add that for me, being familiar with the Spanish-American War, this book added a bit of a new perspective to that part of history as well given Hawaii did play a strategic role for the U.S. as a "coaling" and supply station on their way to the Philippines.

Overall, a neat and interesting read. If you are looking for a good history book with a good narrative, this may be a good choice for you. If you want to learn more about Hawaii and go past the usual images of Pearl Harbor, the tourist attraction and volcanoes, this is a book for you. And if you want a book on a chapter of American history and its imperialism, then this is a good book for that as well.


Final note: To make the FTC happy, I am disclosing I won this book in a GoodReads First Reads giveaway. (Though between us here, I had noted this book earlier as one to read, so winning it was a neat thing). show less

When you stop to think about it, it's pretty insane that Hawai‘i is a state at all. I mean – it's not even in the Americas. There was no cultural link between the islands and the United States. And it wasn't like the Wild West – land that you just naturally stumbled onto while expanding into your manifest destiny. You really had to head out there into the middle of the Pacific and look for the place.

And many did, quite assiduously. Guidebooks and histories will tell you that the show more fiftieth state was ‘added’ in 1959, but until recently the rather ugly annexation process underlying this euphemism was not so easy to come across. ‘I am ashamed of the whole affair,’ wrote Grover Cleveland, under whose second presidential term much of the process played out – though he was out of office by the time annexation was finalised in 1898. Julia Flynn Siler's approach, in common with a lot of more recent writers, is to see the whole affair as a curtain-raiser for the growth of American imperialism.

What happened to the Kingdom of Hawai‘i was one of the most audacious land grabs of the Gilded Age, in which 1.8 million acres of land now worth billions of dollars was seized from native Hawaiians and claimed by American businessmen.

These native Hawaiians from across the islands had been united under one ruling monarchy towards the end of the eighteenth century, and Siler's book examines the territory's annexation through the story of its last monarch, Queen Lili‘uokalani. Educated in American-run missionary schools and descended from a long line of Hawaiian ali‘i or nobles, she was well-versed in both Western and native traditions and was popular among her subjects.

Lili‘u was not under any illusions about her kingdom, and she probably knew what was coming quite early – she had grown up in a Hawai‘i already under considerable pressure from external corporate and military interests. The islands' wealth was built on sugar, and the biggest landowners were all either foreigners or the descendants of foreigners (known in Hawai‘i as haole). Principally, that meant the descendants of missionaries, whose ‘conversion from church-sponsored altruism to brisk mercantilism’ was so often observed that it had led to a cynical local saying: ‘They came to do good and did well.’

The most powerful of these sugar barons had quite colossal influence. The German-American Claus Spreckels – known as the Sugar King, or ‘His Royal Saccharinity’ – owned fully half the country's public debt, and was also a major personal creditor for the royal family. As it happens, Spreckels supported Hawaiian independence, but most of the other haole businessmen wanted more and more ties with the United States, which (if the import tariffs could be overcome) was a stupendously lucrative market for their sugar.

Events moved with gathering speed. First, the cash-strapped monarch was forced to sign a so-called ‘bayonet constitution’, surrendering a great deal of royal authority and giving more power to non-native landowners. Soon there was a US warship parked permanently off Honolulu, just in case American business interests felt threatened. The US was already leasing Pearl Harbor: it was recognised that Hawai‘i was not just the main stopover on the trade route from North America to Asia, it was also the key to military control of the Pacific. Hawkish types in Washington started talking openly about annexing this completely peaceful, independent kingdom – Secretary of State John W Foster, for instance:

The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe and this is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it.

The atmosphere became increasingly polarised, with every little disagreement turning into a major political division and militias forming around both pro-royalty and pro-annexation groups. One such confrontation in 1893 served as the pretext to send in a detachment of US Marines – in order, they said, to protect the safety and property of American lives on Hawai‘i. The action soon crystallised into a coup d'état. Opposition groups, backed by the US forces, declared a Republic and had the queen confined to house arrest. The Hawaiian flag was taken down and replaced by the Stars and Stripes; one observer recorded, with a complete absence of irony, the ‘glorious sight’ of the ‘ensign of Freedom floating over the tower of the Government Building’ whose original incumbents had been arrested and jailed.

Lili‘uokalani signed a document of surrender, believing that Washington would surely reverse the decision once it learned what local troops had done. And the reaction in the US varied a lot – the Fresno Expositor wrote dismissively and racistly that the islanders had ‘dethroned the fat squaw’, but the New York Times ran the story under the headline

A SHAMEFUL CONSPIRACY IN WHICH THE UNITED STATES WAS MADE TO PLAY A PART
__________________
The Political Crime of the Century

But by then it was too late to get the toothpaste back in the tube. Annexation followed in 1898, and – long after Lili‘uokalani had died more-or-less penniless in Honolulu – statehood, ultimately, came in the 1950s.

Some recent gestures towards this awkward past have been made. Clinton offered a formal apology to Hawaiians on the centenary of the coup in 1993. Various versions of the so-called Akaka Bill, which would give native Hawaiians similar recognition and rights as American Indians, have been proposed to Congress since 2000, and some parts of these bills have been accepted.

Lili‘u's political legacy is slight – she was there at the wrong time, and her modest gifts of statesmanship were nowhere near equal to the occasion. She made a good figurehead, however, reacting with great dignity to an impossible situation; she spoke well on behalf of her people and her tradition, translated Hawaiian myths, and left a hugely popular repertoire of her own Hawaiian verses and songs, including some of the most famous Hawaiian music such as Aloha ‘Oe.

Her story is respectfully and carefully told by Siler, in a book with no especial narrative flair but with a great handle on the period and the material, and an admirable sensitivity to Hawai‘i's native culture and language. There was loads in here I knew nothing about – well worth a look for anyone interested in Polynesian culture, American imperialism, Gilded Age politics, and for anyone else who wants the lowdown on the Aloha State. show less