Paradise of the Pacific
Subtitle: approaching Hawaiʻi
By: Susanna Moore
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2015
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 303
ISBN-13: 9780374298777
Copyright date: 2015
Subjects: Social life and customs; Legends; Social change; Acculturation; Emigration and immigration; Culture conflict; Social conditions; History
First sentence: Five hundred thousand years ago, the great volcanoes of the easternmost island of Hawai`i, among them Mauna Lao, Mauna Kea, and Hualãlai, rose eighteen thousands feed above the floor of the northern Pacific Ocean, breaking the surface in eruptions and outpourings of lava.
Description: "The dramatic history of America's tropical paradise. The history of Hawaii may be said to be the story of arrivals--from the eruption of volcanoes on the ocean floor 18,000 feet below, the first hardy seeds that over millennia found their way to the islands, and the confused birds blown from their migratory routes, to the early Polynesian adventurers who sailed across the Pacific in double canoes, the Spanish galleons en route to the Philippines, and the British navigators in search of a Northwest Passage, soon followed by pious Protestant missionaries, shipwrecked sailors, and rowdy Irish poachers escaped from Botany Bay--all wanderers washed ashore, sometimes by accident. This is true of many cultures, but in Hawaii, no one seems to have left. And in Hawaii, a set of myths accompanied each of these migrants--legends that shape our understanding of this mysterious place. In Paradise of the Pacific, Susanna Moore, the award-winning author of In the Cut and The Life of Objects, pieces together the elusive, dramatic story of late-eighteenth-century Hawaii--its kings and queens, gods and goddesses, missionaries, migrants, and explorers--a not-so-distant time of abrupt transition, in which an isolated pagan world of human sacrifice and strict taboo, without a currency or a written language, was confronted with the equally ritualized world of capitalism, Western education, and Christian values"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 279-286) and index.
Table of contents: title: Map
pagenum: vii; title: This Realm of Chaos and Old Night
pagenum: 3; title: Awe of the Night Approaching
pagenum: 31; title: The Source of the Darkness that Made Darkness
pagenum: 49; title: The Cloak of Bird Feathers
pagenum: 81; title: One Great Caravanserai
pagenum: 137; title: A Pilgrim and a Stranger
pagenum: 147; title: A Light to My Path
pagenum: 207; title: Crucified to the World
pagenum: 235; title: Falling Are the Heavens
pagenum: 241; title: The Voice of Landshells
pagenum: 251; title: Notes
pagenum: 263; title: Glossary
pagenum: 267; title: Gods and Personages
pagenum: 273; title: Bibliography
pagenum: 279; title: Index
pagenum: 287