Hawai’i

Outline

Hawai’i (2019) tells the economic and political history of the Hawaiian Islands over eight hundred years. Sumner La Croix explains how Hawaiian society was organised before contact with outsiders, how trade, sugar plantations, and foreign influence transformed the islands, and how Hawai’i became part of the United States. The book shows how land, power, and institutions shaped the islands’ development.

• The book covers the economic and political history of the Hawaiian Islands across eight hundred years.
• Hawaiian society had its own organisation before contact with outsiders, and the book explains how it worked.
• Trade, sugar plantations, and foreign influence transformed the islands over time.
• The book shows how Hawai'i became part of the United States.
• Land, power, and institutions are the forces that shaped how the islands developed.

Sumner La Croix is an American economist and professor emeritus at the University of Hawai’i who specialises in economic history and the economies of Asia and the Pacific. He has written widely on land, institutions, and development in Hawai’i and the Pacific region. Hawai’i: Eight Hundred Years of Political and Economic Change is his major work for general readers.