Review by Choice Review
Siler (independent author) offers a well-crafted account, both scholarly and readable, of the reign and overthrow of Hawaiian Queen Lili'uokalani, supplying as well rich background concerning the variety of regimes that preceded her. In retrospect, the domination of the islands' white settlers over the indigenous population appears inevitable, but the author shows how poor native leadership expedited Western conquest. The book offers telling portraits of five kings (each named Kamehameha), King Kalakaua, and such Westerners as Claus Spreckels, Walter Murray Gibson, and Lorrin Andrew Thurston. Siler presents Lili'u (as she was called) as a tragic figure, sensitive to her people's culture but totally inept in being able to preserve her country's independence. Though Lili'u was overthrown in 1893 in the crudest of fashion, Siler notes how her regime had already been fatally weakened by the imposition of the Bayonet Constitution of 1887. The author also stresses that it was the Spanish-American War, not pressure from the sugar magnates, that caused US annexation. Sources include a number of manuscript collections (including Lili'u's letters and diaries), doctoral theses, contemporary newspapers, government documents, and scholarly monographs and articles. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. J. D. Doenecke New College of Florida
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
UNTIL about 30 years ago, most schoolchildren in Hawaii learned a version of the state's history that went something like this: Christian missionaries came over in the early 1800s and handed the Hawaiians a single god, a written language and their very first muumuus. Later, American officials supported a group of well-intentioned gentlemen, many of them descendants of those missionaries, who replaced the monarchy with a democratic system. Eventually, the United States magnanimously annexed the tiny island republic. Sure, native Hawaiians gave the world entertaining things like the hula and surfboards. But really, they were the luckier ones, receiving the trifecta of monotheism, democracy and American appropriation. The flip side of that story - how it all looked to the native Hawaiians - is much darker. Julia Flynn Siler's new book, "Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure," recounts that tale using more than 275 sources, including contemporaneous Hawaiian newspapers and the letters and diaries of Lili'uokalani, the last Hawaiian monarch. After a brief synopsis of the initial settlement of the islands and their 1778 "discovery" by Capt. James Cook, Siler digs in at the beginning of the end with the arrival of the first missionaries in 1820. The cultural contempt of these New Englanders, though typical for the era, was no less heartbreaking in what it would mean for the islanders. "The appearance of destitution, degradation and barbarism among the chattering, almost naked savages, whose heads and feet and much of their sunburnt swarthy skin were bare, was appalling," the Rev. Hiram Bingham wrote. "Can these be human beings?" What followed was a slow-motion stripping of tradition, land, political power and health from the native Hawaiians over the next 70 or so years, which Siler details intricately: the shaming of traditional dress and dance, the gobbling up of property belonging to land-rich but cash-poor locals by American and British sugar planters, the "Bayonet Constitution," forced on King Kalakaua by, among others, a missionary grandson, which turned the monarch into a figurehead, gave voting rights to property-owning whites and took them away from many native Hawaiians. And of course, there was the toll of foreign-borne smallpox and measles, which reduced the native Hawaiian population by a horrific 75 percent between Cook's arrival and 1853. The Kingdom of Hawaii's death march ended in 1893 with Lili'uokalani's forced abdication to a provisional government, dominated by missionary descendants and haole (white or foreign) businessmen. Five years later, the United States quietly annexed the eight main islands. During the overthrow, Marines landed in Honolulu and occupied points including Iolani Palace. While there, Siler tells us, a recruit "found Kalakaua's crown and pried off the jewels, which he then used as payment in a game of dice. He managed to avoid gambling them all away and kept one of the biggest diamonds, which he sent to his sister on the mainland, not realizing its value." This story is an apt metaphor for the annexation - capturing the disrespect American citizens and representatives often showed to the Hawaiian people, culture and government. That jewel the recruit sent home without realizing its worth? It might as well have been Pearl Harbor, the value of which would become incalculable in a few decades. To her credit, Siler does not hide the painful truth that the Hawaiians were complicit in their fate. For example, King Kamehameha III gave millions of acres to his friends and family without adequately ensuring the commoners would get their share. In the end, commoners held less than 1 percent of the lands distributed, and many ali'i (chiefs) sold out to foreign sugar barons to raise cash. Later, King Kalakaua spent lavishly on parties, pomp and travel, driving the kingdom into great debt, much of it held by a shrewd sugar baron named Claus Spreckels. From the outset, Siler faces certain credibility issues: she is nonnative and nonlocal. She is also working with a language - Hawaiian - that is highly nuanced, often making accurate translations difficult to come by. Yet her book is richly and diversely sourced, and she's able to color in many figures who had heretofore existed largely in outline or black and white. Lili'uokalani manages to keep her Christian faith, though she blames the missionaries for undermining her people. Kalakaua seems to be led by the nose by his mainland cronies, yet he is singularly responsible for reviving the deeply Hawaiian tradition of hula, which had been dormant since the 1820s. "Lost Kingdom" is not as gripping as it could have been, given the palace intrigue and double dealing it describes. But it is a solidly researched account of an important chapter in our national history, one that most Americans don't know but should. It will probably provoke missionary descendants and native Hawaiians alike, which is praise in itself. Sadly, though President Clinton apologized to native Hawaiians in 1993, a bill aiming to restore a measure of sovereignty has languished in Congress for well over a decade. And Siler underscores another bitter footnote to the story: while the Hawaiians vie for political recognition that may never come, many descendants of those who profited from what an 1893 New York Times headline called "the political crime of the century" remain some of the state's wealthiest and most influential landholders. Malia Boyd, a native of Honolulu, has written for Travel & Leisure, Food & Wine and other publications.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [March 11, 2012]
Review by Booklist Review
Too many Americans forget (if they ever knew) that our island paradise was acquired via a cynical, imperious land grab in which wealthy businessmen, the military, and the government conspired. Siler, an award-winning journalist, skillfully places her account within the context of late nineteenth-century great power rivalry, as France, Britain, and the U.S. sought dominant position in the Pacific. By the 1890s, American businessmen, especially the sugar kings, dominated the Hawaiian economy through control of the sugar crop. When that fact combined with the flowering of American naval ambitions, Hawaii's status as an independent kingdom was doomed. Siler's narrative concentrates on the efforts of Queen Lili'uokalani to stave off American annexation. The missionary-educated queen is seen as an admirable, tragic figure whose efforts to straddle both the modern and traditional Hawaiian worlds proved futile. This is a well-written, fast-moving saga that explores a seamy aspect of our territorial growth.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Behind the modern bustle of the nation's only island state lies this sad, sobering tale of decline, betrayal, and imperialism. It centers on the admirable last monarch of the Hawaiians, Queen Lilu'okalani, who struggled against palace intrigue, American sugar barons, and eventually cynical American military diplomacy before losing her throne in 1893, a few years before the U.S. simply annexed the Hawaiian islands as American territory. Wall Street Journal contributing writer Siler (The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty) skillfully weaves the tangled threads of this story into a satisfying tapestry about the late 19th-century death of a small nation at the hands of United States imperialists and businessmen like Claus Spreckels, a German immigrant grocer turned sugar refiner, who by 1876 had bought up half of Hawaii's anticipated sugar crop. The leading character, the queen, comes off as more done to than doing, yet Siler convinces you that the well-meaning, staunch Lilu'okalani had few options when confronted with superior power. Siler's history would have benefited from an interpretive thread, but it makes up in sympathetic detail what it lacks in stimulating ideas. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In Siler's second book (after The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty), she brings to life the story of America's annexation of the sovereign Hawaiian Islands. She begins when Christian missionaries from Boston landed on Hawaii in 1820-when Western powers truly began to influence Hawaiian affairs-and follows the birth and life of Lili'uokalani, the woman who would become the last queen of Hawaii. American sugar planters, the self-styled Sugar Kings, slowly took over most of the arable land on the islands, while Lili'uokalani's elder brother King David Kala_kaua became deeply indebted to them. He eventually sought a loan from England to pay off the Sugar Kings. Several countries, including America, England, and France, looked to the Pacific for colonial expansion and became embroiled in the controversies in Hawaii until American forces deposed Lili'uokalani against the will of the vast majority of native Hawaiians. VERDICT Siler gives readers a sweeping tale of tragedy, greed, betrayal, and imperialism. The depth of her research shines through the narrative, and the lush prose and quick pace make for engaging reading. Anyone interested in Hawaiian history or American imperialism will find this an absorbing read. [See Prepub Alert, 7/10/11.]-Crystal Goldman, San Jose State Univ. Lib., CA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Wall Street Journal contributing writer Siler (The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty, 2007) rehearses the dark imperial history of how Americans first arrived in the islands, how they rose in power and how they deposed the queen and took everything. The author's story really has no heroes. Although she is deeply sympathetic with the last queen, Liliuokalani, the monarchs of Hawaii during the latter part of the 19th century did not exactly rule with Solomonic wisdom or Diogenic austerity. They coddled the white planters, amassed enormous debts and lived an egregiously wasteful lifestyle. Still, as Siler shows, the islands were theirs, and the white settlers took them away. The author begins with some quick geological and archaeological history and summarizes the misadventures of Captain Cook. Next, she leaps to 1893, the moment of crisis for the queen, then returns to 1820 and moves relentlessly forward to the late 1890s, when the United States annexed the islands, permanently ending the monarchy. (Oddly, as the author notes, a statue of the queen now stands facing the Hawaiian legislative building.) Born in 1838, Liliuokalani was not in direct line to the throne, but deaths and power politics eventually placed her there. As she relates the queen's pathway to power, Siler also tells about famous visitors, Herman Melville (1843) and Mark Twain (1866) among them. But this is mostly the story of white entrepreneurs and missionaries who came and conquered. One man, Claus Spreckels, created a massive sugar empire, transforming the landscape, altering waterways, operating a fleet of steamships and benefitting from the cooperation of the royals. Eventually, white economic interests trumped all else, and the queen struggled and failed to retain authority. A well-rendered narrative of paradise and imperialism.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
