Hawaii Books

As I anticipated this publication on Pacific jewelry and adornment is a striking publication. It is beautifully designed and printed.

There are over 240 high-quality photographs illustrating an awesome selection of objects from around the Pacific. The first class photography reveals the exquisite details of artistry used with various materials - all round this book makes great pacific ornamental reference material.

Enhanced throughout with the superb color images of Auckland-based photographer Krzysztof Pfeiffer, Pacific Jewelry And Adornment is the collaborative work of Roger Neich (Curator of Ethnology, Auckland Museum and Professor of Anthropology, University of Auckland) and Fuli Pereira (Curator of the Pacific Collection, Auckland Museum). This impressively informative work of art history showcases 250 representative examples of traditional jewelry from the Pacific made from the raw materials of jade, whale tooth and bone, shark teeth, tapa, shells, and plant fibers. Insightful information is provided to the use of personal decorative items to reflect power, status and community, as well as their significance with respect to high ceremonial occasions. Drawn from the collections of the Auckland Museum, these illustrative items reflect the vast geographical areas of the Pacific from Micronesia, Papua, New Guinea, and Fiji, to Samoa, Tonga, Hawaii, New Zealand, and the Cook Islands. Pacific Jewelry And Adornment is a strongly recommended addition to any academic or community library Oceanic Culture or Art History collection.

Roger Neich is one of the leading experts in Pacific ethnology with a score of informative and readable books and catalogs to his credit. Pacific Jewelry and Adornment is the most recent addition to his remarkable published work. Incorporating some of the best examples of Pacific Jewelry from the Aukland Museum and other collections, the book provides a concise and detailed overview of the diversity of styles, while outlining the forces of migration and trade that influenced the dispersal of form and material. As an ethnologist who has studied and written on Pacific adornment, I have read pretty much everything there is on the subject, and this book is the single best source. Beautifully illustrated also.

John Van Sant, a professor of Japanese History at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, has written an approachable and engaging look back at some of the very first Japanese travelers to the United States in the mid to late 1800s.

For the student of Asian-American History or Early Modern Asian Japanese History, Pacific Pioneers, is an invaluable reference that bridges the gap between the broad view of early Japan-U.S. interaction and the Japanese political reaction to it. Many of the popular books that deal with this area of history are concerned with its larger events such as the Perry and Iwakura Missions.

Van Sant's book is about individuals who came to a foreign land, and were instrumental in defining how the Western world viewed a recently opened island nation. Van Sant's scholarship is through and compiles a great deal of information that is often lost in the larger events of the period. Even those who aren't interested in Asian or Asian-American History can appreciate the people Van Sant has researched for their sense of wonder and discovery as some of the first to leave their homeland, which was closed off to nearly all foreign intercourse for over 200 years.

I find the book especially engaging because it examines how Americans reacted to their foreign visitors during a time when man of today's stereotypes about the Japanese culture had not been developed. Also, by examining the way in which the New World was viewed by the Japanese visitors, the reader can see how foreigners reacted to the Western world and found their culture to be exotic, captivating, and at times, frightening. The book is a revealing and honest look at how different cultures are viewed by people that were truly foreign to them.

A book I recommend for anyone who is interested in history on a very personal and revealing level.

This is a truly absorbing read. Author John Van Sant casts light on a little-explored corner of American history about which, I'm willing to bet, few readers have any knowledge at all. Some may be vaguely aware that a handful of shipwrecked Japanese sailors fetched up on American shores in the first half of the nineteenth century or that large Japanese embassies toured this country in 1860 and 1871-72. But how many know that scores of Japanese students were living in such an unlikely place as New Brunswick, New Jersey in the late 1860s and 1870s, studying about American institutions as well as "big guns" and "big ships." Or that several young Japanese aristocrats--including a later titan of Meiji Japan--were holed up in a utopian commune, under the watchful eye of an eccentric guru, doing housework and tending grapevines? Or that other countrymen and women of less elevated status, fleeing worsening economic conditions back home, were scraping out a bare living in Hawaii and northern California?

In clear economic prose, thankfully free of academic jargon, Van Sant explores each of these expatriate communities in some depth. (Oddly enough, the author makes no mention whatsoever of the troupes of Japanese entertainers criss-crossing the country during this same period. Even Mark Twain complained bitterly in 1867 about having to compete with a company of Japanese acrobats for an audience.) He also does the historical record a considerable service by freeing some of these pioneers--the "mysterious" Wakamatsu Colony of Gold Hill, California being a prime example--from an encrustation of myth. If I have any quibble at all with Pacific Pioneers, it is that it is too short. Highly recommended!

I think that Dr Van Sant tells a compelling tale of the first wave of Japanese settlers who came to the United States and Hawaii. This book is for anybody who is interested in Asian American History. It should be the first book cracked open for any student who signs up to take any Asian studies class, either in the undergraduate or post-graduate world. I loved it.

I had the pleasure of travelling in Bhutan with my father for 4 months when he was painting some of the work in the book. Shameless plug here for him, I know, but the designer did a wonderful job and the content ain't half bad either. Cheers!

I had the pleasure of travelling in Bhutan with my father for 4 months when he was painting some of the work in the book. Shameless plug here for him, I know, but the designer did a wonderful job and the content ain't half bad either. Cheers!

A Painter's Year In The Forests Of Bhutan by scholar and painter A. K. Hellum is an impressively presented artbook offering unique botanical and visual insights into the flora and culture of the land of Bhutan. Featuring color illustrations of more than 100 rarely seen Bhutanese plants, Hellum's extensive and thoughtful commentary enhances the gentle, museum quality illustrations, and provides the reader with a thoughtful perspective in the form of an exotic giftbook which is most especially recommended for lovers of nature and students of botany.

Dedicated to his grandfather and the community of international radio operators, the book begins in International Morse Code with "May it fall to science to march many steps toward the goal of complete knowledge." Mr. Wilford likely copies CW solid and reveals his belief in structured and objective analysis.

Mr. Wilford's book (and recent peer reviewed journal articles), should be recognized as one of the latest to weigh into the final gasps of the Pearl Harbor debate where clear and bipolar lines are now zealously drawn. It makes extensive use of a broad range of cited documents, some old and many new; primary and secondary materials, American and Allied, and even includes a sworn affidavit. Inconsistencies, even within what are thought to be "primary source documents," are importantly discussed. As a note to the reader, this book presupposes a very detailed appreciation of the many things Pearl Harbor and is not recommended, therefore, for the novice to this subject.

The text derives from Mr. Wilford's award-winning and highly regarded masters thesis (MA in History, University of Ottawa, under the supervision of Professor Brian Loring Villa). Some reference materials within the thesis are not shown in this book.

This is indeed an effort of discipline and sophisticated focus which provides a comparative review of prior Pearl Harbor writings and their respective positions. These are then commented upon applying the now publicly available newer information, notably that gained only after several FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests pried them out into the bright sunlight.

Mr. Wilford offers two conclusions, each logically supported by the combined weight of the evidence supplied (numerous citations are given). They are that: (a) it can be shown that the STRIKING FORCE broke radio silence many times on their voyage to Pearl Harbor and that the USN RDF network and others captured those transmissions, and (b) it can be demonstarted that segments of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Operations Code (variously known as JN25, AN-1, five-numeral, 5Num, JN25B, JN25B7, five figure, five digit ...) were read at some level providing intelligence prior to the Pearl Harbor attack.

Discovered during his research, and mentioned several times via examples in the text, Mr. Wilford points to specific and purposeful gaps in archival materials, continued denial of US Navy RDF documents (e.g., RIP-45 and RIP-213), intercept station chronologies being lost or truncated, ..., etc. This is commented upon at some length as a "pattern" shown now for many decades - a pattern even extending to instances in the Joint Congressional Hearings on Pearl Harbor.

The ending: "The men on Battleship Row deserved a fighting chance." should us give pause and should stir our collective conscience.

This academic study of naval signals intelligence collected before the Pearl Harbor attack provides new answers to an old historical controversy. Combining technical knowledge with historical appreciation, Wilford puts all the evidence on trial and concludes that the Americans, along with their allies, must have had enough signals intelligence to predict a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. However, he refrains from committing himself to an exclusively revisionist view of the controversy. For Wilford, negligence or confusion may have prevented relevant intelligence from being shared with Admiral Kimmel and General Short, although Wilford considers (at length) the conspiracy theory about the Roosevelt administration. Wilford's selection of evidence suggests that he favours the view that Roosevelt let the attack proceed without providing enough advance warning. But Wilford, for academic reasons, seems reluctant to reject the view that relevant signals intelligence was badly mishandled. The reader would find it more satisfying to have a conclusive answer to the controversy, but Wilford approaches his work in an academic way and carefully weighs the evidence.

The book combines archival evidence with secondary accounts to develop new views. Wilford definitely shows that the American Navy was partially reading Japanese naval messages by late 1941, although he cannot show how much was read. He reviews the content of the intercepted messages and discusses possibilities. In a more conclusive section, Wilford shows that American direction finding and radio signals analysis was quite advanced, and argues that the Japanese strike force (Kido Butai) was tracked, owing to its use of inter-ship communications during the voyage to Hawaii. In a section on intelligence reporting, Wilford expands his theme of American "foreknowledge" to Allied "foreknowledge". Wilford quotes from postwar testimonials to build a case showing that the British produced an accurate estimate of Japan's most likely move in the Pacific - an attack on Pearl Harbor. This book will appeal to specialists because of its methodical study of signals intelligence collected before the Pearl Harbor attack, and its appreciation of the historical significance of such intelligence operations.

"Pearl Harbor Redefined" is a scholarly monograph that combines original research, based on new archival sources, with a thoughtful historiographical critique of the topic: pre-Pearl Harbor radio intelligence. In each chapter, the author, Timothy Wilford, contrasts his research with the views of other historians and redefines the Pearl Harbor controversy.

Firstly, Wilford places the Pearl Harbor attack in a broad historical perspective, offering readers a survey of the events that led to a political crisis between the United States and Japan. Secondly, he examines the state of U.S. Navy "cryptanalysis" (code-breaking) in 1941, using contemporaneous primary evidence, concluding that the U.S. had partial reading ability of the principal Japanese Navy Code, and that important information concerning the existence of a Strike Force and some of its plans may have been accessible to American intelligence. Thirdly, Wilford assesses U.S. Navy "traffic analysis", or direction-finding and signals analysis, as a means of providing foreknowledge of Japan's actions in the North Pacific. In this section, Wilford develops a case against the claim of Japanese radio silence and reconstructs the Strike Force communications plan. He also reconstructs the Dec. 3/41 report of Leslie Grogan, based on Grogan's written accounts and Grogan's interviews with historian Ladislas Farago. Fourthly, Wilford looks at U.S. Navy intelligence reporting and Allied intelligence support, producing even more original research concerning British foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, based upon Canadian sources. Finally, he concludes that sufficient radio intelligence existed to predict the Pearl Harbor attack - complete surprise at Pearl Harbor could only have resulted from an enormous failure in intelligence reporting ("gross neglect") or a Washington plan to sacrifice Pearl Harbor to enter WWII ("careful design", Wilford's euphemism for a secret plan or conspiracy).

Wilford's research and interpretation is strikingly original and will appeal to those interested in Intelligence History, Pearl Harbor Historiography, or the Pacific War in general. The general reader should note that this is quite a technical book, dealing at length with the principles of radio communications and intelligence (there are 449 footnotes, and 10 pages of bibliographic sources, many representing newly-released archival material). However, in the book's conclusion, Wilford succeeds at placing his research in a broader perspective, and reflects on the meaning of the "traditionalist" and "revisionist" views, asking some rather poignant questions. "Pearl Harbor Redefined" will likely compel some historians to re-appraise the events that led to the Pacific War.

An interesting and intimate account of a woman discovering her dream and then remaining focused on it, until she fianlly achieves it,.. overcoming along the way, many challenges and heartbreaks in her personal and family life. It includes many valuable life lessons, and principles of success. This book was an inspiration to me!

I love this book!! Although I am not an athlete I found the author's story very fascinating and inspiring. You don't need to be an athlete to understand her message: Everything is possible if you believe in yourself.

I can only recommend this book!!

This book is all about believing in yourself and achieving goals. It is a well written story of an ordinary woman who's life had many extra challenges. She found ways to overcome the difficult things that came her way and showed that anything is possible. Her life takes several exciting and interesting paths! She is a inspiration to others especially to athletes!

He's Sam Choy, he cooks great Hawaiian food, and now he shows us how. What more can I say?

Well bound and with hearty paper stock, this book is made for the cook who wants to try some of the best Island recipes without having to learn how to dig a pit for Kalua pork. Sam has taken some of his best recipes, his old standards, from poke to sweet and sour (mmm!), his opah and his spicy soups, and placed them into one very easy to use book.
Again, Sam's at his best when he is explaining what the ingrediants and preparation process is, as well as giving lively history and substiution ingrediants for those of us without a nearby market. The back even has some ingrediant stores to get supplies from.
There's no downside to this book, other than than you could spend $... on his other books (some of which are fantastic- Seafood and poke for example) to get some of the best recipes which are all compiled in one easy to use place.
The recipes are all gems, which happens when you cull over 500 recipes into his best and easiest 80. If you could only buy one Hawaiian cookbook, this would be the one. And then you need to save up to buy some of his other cookbooks. It is a wonderful gift, and I am buying another to give to my island hungry friends.

Well Done, Sam, Very ono!

I bought this book while in Hawaii and immediatly made three dishes. All were wonderful. Not only did I love them, but my kids did too. Fancy finding a salad dressing that will get a six-year-old to gobble up his salad!!. The Huli Huli Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork are worth the price of the book. I am so impressed that I will buy another Sam Choy cookbook. By the way, his restaurant in Kona is great as well!

Sharks of Hawaii: Their Biology and Cultural Significance, by Leighton R. Taylor, is a great book on Hawaii's sharks. The book includes information on individual species of sharks (with line drawings and photographs), information on the relationship between Hawaiians and sharks (including the concept of 'aumakua, and fishing techniques), modern conservation concerns, and a good summary of shark biology.

The book also has a detailed listing of the Hawaii shark attack file maintained by NOAA scientist George Balazs.

"Pau pele, pau mano." Tell the truth or be subjected to the perils of volcanos and sharks.

If you read much at all about sharks, you encounter so many contradictions that it's obvious some authors are talking through their hats. It's fair to say that Dr. Leighton Taylor wears his -- former director of the Waikiki Aquarium, taxonomist who was called to write the species description of the Megamouth shark when it was discovered, veteran of many research efforts in the North Pacific.
A man who knows enough to know which questions are best left open.
The sharks of Hawaii are political animals. The natural history, while it still contains many mysteries, is the easy part.
Here Taylor is admirable, if brief. 'Sharks of Hawaii' has three kinds of illustrations -- color photographs, outline drawings and 10 paintings by Michael Cole. Cole paints plausible versions of natural events never observed by anybody.
So, for example, this book takes a thorough look at the cookiecutter shark, one of the mysteries of the deep. It was only recently that this little shark's mode of life was deduced.
It nips a bite out of bigger fish or mammals with its specially adapted teeth. Researchers still don't understand now the rather flabby, small-finned and obviously slow cookiecutter manages to get close enought to fast moving prey such as ahi (yellowfin tuna) to get a meal.
'Freshly caught specimens glow a ghostly green,' writes Taylor. 'Perhaps the cookiecutter attracts prey with the green glow and then ambushes the would-be predator.'
The little nightmare is widely distributed but not known to have ever attacked a live human in the water, in Hawaii at least.
Of the hundred or so known cases of sharks biting people in the islands, some of whom were probably already dead from other causes (like drowning), only two species are pretty surely implicated: the tiger shark and perhaps great white sharks, although the latter are rare around Hawaii.
To put it in perspective, the most dangerous sea creature in Hawaii is the opihi, a limpet about two or three inches across. Several people drown each year while collecting opihi, while fatal shark attacks seldom exceed one a year.
There is much still to be learned about Hawaii's sharks, and not just for the pure pleasure of knowing.
Taylor is commendably frank about pointing out where the areas of ignorance lie. 'Terms such as "the shark" and "sharks" are general to the point of vagueness. Careless use of such indefinite terms can be misleading . . . .It is careless, inaccurate, and perhaps even irresponsible for modern commentators to make such imprecise statements as "sharks are sacred to Hawaiians" and "Hawaiians did not kill sharks" or "sharks were important food for Hawaiians."
'Such statements are true for some species, but we are by no means certain which species match which Hawaiian names.'
'Sharks of Hawaii' is a nicely balanced book: respectful, well-informed, well illustrated and politically incorrect.

This book was a true surprise. After being disappointed with the lack of literature on sharks (especially for the hawaii area), I was very happy to have stumbled onto this book. The amount of depth into the cultural significance of sharks in the hawaiian culture was astounding. It also had a good deal of icthiology and marine science information. I reccomend it to anyone interested in the history and cultures of hawaii, or to anyone looking for a good book on sharks.

287 Pages, 11.5" x 8.75", Hardback. A simply superb book, lavishly illustrated in full color, beautifully demonstrating the power and magic of the shields of New Guinea and the surrounding islands. Hundreds of full-color items and 14 maps.

It is a bit sad that the people living in such an idyllic location as the islands of the South Pacific. But of course there were people there and that means that there was conflict.

Among the many differences in these shields from those commonly seen in European collections is that the South Pacific islands had no iron, no metals of any type. While the Europeans were constantly innovating and improving their weapons, the islanders were still making fighting equipment from organic materials such as animal hide, bark, wood, rattan. That means, among other things that these shelds were made relatively recently when compared with European exhibits.

Surprisingly, although this book is titled Shields of Melanesia, many of the areas of what is now called Melanesia such as Vanuatu and New Caladonia never developed shields at all. This book will represent the definitive work on this class of shields, it is beautifully printed and illustrated.

A great work about the various shield types of Melanesia. The book deals mostly with mainland New Guinea, but also with surrounding Islands and the Solomons. There are beautiful pictures in color of the shields and old b/w field photographs. It includes also many distribution maps of the different shield types. Until now, this is the first reference book about Melanesian shields, and a must for anybody who is interested in that field. Not only the allready well known regions like Sepik-, Asmat and Highlands of P.N.G. are described, it deals also with lesser known areas like Digul or Waropen.
Barry Craig had long-time field expirience at the Min region (see his other book about that region „Art and Decoration of Central New Guinea". The austrian Harry Beran, is an expert about the Massim Art.
It's a pitty, that the book is not available from the original publisher in australia. He is a specialist for books about Melanesia-New Guinea. Without his enthusiasm, many books about that field, would not have been published.

The captivating drawings and luscious colors used in Wrinkled Woo's illustrations make this a perfect book to give as a gift. Kids who aren't readers will enjoy looking at every page.

What a wonderful book. Very fun to read and the images are wonderful. FIVE STARS !!!!! *****

This is a must have for any children's library! The pictures are stunning and the story line captures true cross cultural awareness and unconditional acceptance of others while addressing the need for flexibility with one's changing environment! Wrinkles are found everywhere- including the books textured wrinkled cover but these wrinkles aren't the ones we associate with aging skin... rather these wrinkles are those associated with the uniqueness of the Shar-Pei dog breed! The book is a class act and I loved the Hawaii connection! Our 4 year old not only loves the message but is thrilled with the vibrant colors and stunning pictures! A wonderful addition to any family!

June 18, 2001

Dear Sirs:

The first paragraph of the review I submitted on June 17, 2001 should end like this:

....it is an excellent source document for military historians with much important new information about the military action of this carrier during and immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Thank you for your time and interest.

Ralph Peterson

As this book contains recently declassiifed information regarding the US aircraft carrier USS Enterprise from the ship's logbooks, as well as diaries of the pilots who flew her planes, it is an excellent source document for military historians with much important new information on the role and military actions of this carrier during World War II.

And all readers should find interesting the little-known story of an unexpected gale which developed some 300 miles west of Hawaii on December 5, 1941 as the Enterprise was returning to port at Pearl Harbor from a training exercise and which probably saved this carrier.

This unexpected storm caused Admiral Halsey to cut the speed of this 13-ship task force in half, delaying their scheduled arrival back at Pearl Harbor for 24 hours until Sunday afternoon of December 7th (after the Japanese attack had occurred at dawn that morning).

Many WWII history buffs will appreciate the fact that if the Enterprise had been in port that Sunday morning as scheduled (and as the Japanese expected) , it would almost certainly have been sunk with all of the US battleships there. And the Japanese Admirals would have probably been emboldened enough to dare make a second strike against the fuel storage tanks and other important military targets on the island.

Since the US only had three carriers in the Pacific at that time (and the Japanese had eight) , the situation for the American fleet would have extremely serious and could have put the entire Southeast Pacific area (including Australia) at grave risk of occupation by Japanese forces.

The documented story of the miraculous gale which probably saved the Enterprise (and which has not been widely disseminated before) in itself makes this book well worth buying.

As this book contains recently declassiifed information regarding the US aircraft carrier USS Enterprise from the ship's logbooks, as well as diaries of the pilots who flew her planes, it is an excellent source document for military historians with much important new information on the role and military actions of this carrier during World War II.

And all readers should find interesting the little-known story of an unexpected gale which developed some 300 miles west of Hawaii on December 5, 1941 as the Enterprise was returning to port at Pearl Harbor from a training exercise and which probably saved this carrier.

This unexpected storm caused Admiral Halsey to cut the speed of this 13-ship task force in half, delaying their scheduled arrival back at Pearl Harbor for 24 hours until Sunday afternoon of December 7th (after the Japanese attack had occurred at dawn that morning).

Many WWII history buffs will appreciate the fact that if the Enterprise had been in port that Sunday morning as scheduled (and as the Japanese expected) , it would almost certainly have been sunk with all of the US battleships there. And the Japanese Admirals would have probably been emboldened enough to dare make a second strike against the fuel storage tanks and other important military targets on the island.

Since the US only had three carriers in the Pacific at that time (and the Japanese had eight) , the situation for the American fleet would have extremely serious and could have put the entire Southeast Pacific area (including Australia) at grave risk of occupation by Japanese forces.

The documented story of the miraculous gale which probably saved the Enterprise (and which has not been widely disseminated before) in itself makes this book well worth buying.