Magnum Mania!

Hi all,

I was wondering if people can give me some recommendations on some good books I can buy that go into Hawaii's history, culture, people etc. For example I find the history of the royal family interesting etc. I feel a great love and connection with Hawaii and want to learn more about the place.

I came across a recommendation for 'Hawaii' by James Michener,in one of the episode specific forums, so will give this one a whirl (fictional, but forum member said it was good none the less for insight into Hawaii). Otherwise I'm finding it hard to work out which books will be good or not by doing simple searches on books of 'Hawaii'.

Can anyone recommend any other titles to me, specifically non-fiction about Hawaii's history, modern era Oahu etc. Preferably if possible titles that would be available on Amazon.com

Cheers
Steve

PS Sorry if this is in the wrong sub-forum JJ, wasn't really sure which section to put it in...

Thanks for bringing this up Steve. I was looking recently for books on Hawaii and didn't come up with much good advice. I didn't think of the forum. Mitchner's Hawaii seems like a good candidate, but as for giving it a "whirl," I think its massive size might prove to be a more serious endeavour!

My father in law read a book that he highly recommends on Captain Cook, which covers his exploits (and demise) in Hawaii. If that's the sort of thing you're looking for, I could get the title for you.

steveadl wrote:Hi all,

I was wondering if people can give me some recommendations on some good books I can buy that go into Hawaii's history, culture, people etc. For example I find the history of the royal family interesting etc. I feel a great love and connection with Hawaii and want to learn more about the place.

I came across a recommendation for 'Hawaii' by James Michener,in one of the episode specific forums, so will give this one a whirl (fictional, but forum member said it was good none the less for insight into Hawaii). Otherwise I'm finding it hard to work out which books will be good or not by doing simple searches on books of 'Hawaii'.

Can anyone recommend any other titles to me, specifically non-fiction about Hawaii's history, modern era Oahu etc. Preferably if possible titles that would be available on Amazon.com

Cheers
Steve

PS Sorry if this is in the wrong sub-forum JJ, wasn't really sure which section to put it in...

Hi Steve

I have a book on Hawaii, in wich there are lots of interesting things like : restaurant, accomodations, Hawaian's history with maps, pictures..

The book is : HAWAII "Lonely planet"
ISBN : 978 1 74104 577 2

By cons, I don't know if this book is sold on Amazon.com.

maybe. God Luck

It's not a book, but there's an excellent article, "Napoleon of the Pacific" by Jason Van Steenwyck in Military History magazine's April 2000 issue. It chronicles King Kamehameha's conquest of the islands circa 1795-1810. It's lavishly illustrated, too.

Couldn't find that article unfortunately, and the back issues on their website only go back to 2004.

For those interested, I did however find quite a few books on Amazon.com that look very interesting. Took a while as I couldn't understand why I wasn't having much luck finding anything on Amazon of all places with millions of books! Turns out when you use search terms 'Hawaii' and 'Waikiki' it mostly comes up with travel, tour guide books etc. However I had a light bulb moment yesterday and tried the term 'Honolulu' which yielded much better results. It was much easier to find books from that term and also then recommended links based on those titles.

I've ordered a few already so once they arrive and I've had a chance to get to them, I'll start posting some links and comments on what I thought of them.

Also came across an interesting website, though I haven't purchased from it as it goes through Amazon anyway:

http://www.hawaiibooks.com

To resurrect an old thread...

I'm currently reading Shoal Of Time which I'd highly recommend. Easy to read, engaging and informative.
It's a modern history of Hawaii in the sense that it starts with Cook's first voyage to the islands.

Anyway- three years later, I hope you found some good books, guys.

to steal a kingdom. --Hawaii's story by Queen Lili'uokalani . -- yes Gavin daws shoal of time was good however from another website :
I can understand how you might consider it to read objectively, but I do not. I do not judge harshly Mr Daws for this; he is only human, he did his best to impart good scholarship and research into the work, and it isn't his fault that he did not speak Hawaiian. It is this last fact that makes all of the difference because had he'd been able, he would have had a much better grasp of the subject. Still, in hindsight, SoT was a monumental work, and if I dig out my copy, I put stickies on all sorts of errors (one of these days I ought to publish them, considering all the time/effort I put into researching them for no other reason than I was curious, and knew it contradicted Hawaiian newspaper articles that I had read along the way).

also keep in mind, to understand modern Hawaii you must have a grasp of ancient Hawaii that is very important to that end, you must read the lonely warrior. the life and times of King Kamehameha very good book ..