The Last Aloha Review

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(More customer reviews)I live in two worlds, one I know and one that leaves me baffled. I was raised by my native Hawaiian grandmother who was born in 1887. She was 6 years old at the time of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. I was 5 when we became the 50th State of America and on that day I learned the most important lesson of my life. I went to my white grandparents home in Kahala for a 4th of July like picnic celebration and was dropped off later that day at my Hawaiian grandmother's home and witnessed the other truth, the mourning.
24 years after the overthow Liliuokalani wrote, " I could not turn back the time for the political change, but there is still time to save our heritage. You must remember never to cease to act because you fear you may fail. The way to lose any earthly kingdom is to be inflexible, intolerant and prejudicial. Another way is to be too flexible, tolerant of too many wrongs and without judgment at all. It is a razor¹s edge. It is the width of a blade of pili grass. To gain the kingdom of heaven is to hear what is not said, to see what can not be seen, and to know the unknowable, that is Aloha. All things in this world are two; in heaven there is but one." (Liliuokalani 1917)
On that day in 1959 I saw two truths and I have spent a life time trying to tell the other side, but with each side bunkered down behind their truth it is too painful to hear the other. The subject of the overthrow has been obscured by a hundred fifteen years maybe heaven will open up and Queen Liliuokalani's truth will be heard through a historical novel called, "The Last Aloha". E waiho `ia me ka ha'aha'a a me ke aloha palena `ole.

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2010 BAIPA Award Winner: Best Historical Fiction.How did Hawaii become part of America? This story, inspired by true events suppressed for nearly 100 years, is the one James Michener never wrote. In 1886, Laura Jennings travels to Hawaii to live with missionary relatives. She imagines she'll live in a grass hut, ministering to savages. When she arrives in Honolulu, she's surprised to find her relatives are among the wealthy elite plotting to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy. And, far from being savages, the Hawaiians have developed a charming and prosperous Victorian kingdom. To avoid her conniving uncle's control, Laura leaves to work for the royal family and learns her family's prejudices against them are false. The last Queen, Lili-uokalani, wages a tragic struggle to save the Kingdom. Through choices she makes when every avenue is blocked, Laura sees the power that can restore the spirit of a people caught in a turbulent world and discovers how long-hidden secrets of her own family lead the way to reunion.

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Hawaii Under the Rising Sun: Japan's Plans for Conquest After Pearl Harbor Review

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(More customer reviews). Equipped with Japanese language skills and academic experience in Japan, Dr. Stephan conducted exhaustive research into military and civilian sources in order to develop the full story of Japan's designs upon Hawaii in the early stages of WWII. His book reveals a serious intent to actually invade and occupy the islands, primarily to deny the U.S. Navy its natural springboard for challenging Japanese advances in the Pacific. The kicker in that regard was the Doolittle Raid in April 1942, which convinced the Japanese Army that Hawaii was a threat that had to be neutralized.
. A secondary goal was to liberate the "Asian" poplace of Hawaii (which to Imperial Japan was everyone there except Caucasians) and bring them into their Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Some Japanese even advocated annexing Hawaii outright, as a natural extension of their own island nation.
. One surprise to this reviewer was learning the extent to which many of Hawaii's ethnic Japanese citizens directly participated in the mother country's war, at least before Pearl Harbor. Many served in the Imperial armed forces (i.e., in China) and others returned to Japan before Pearl Harbor to support the war through academic or jounalistic pursuits. There is no suggestion, though, that Japanese-Americans in Hawaii (after Pearl Harbor) engaged in any such activities.
. The book also reveals that a Japanese attempt to take and hold Hawaii was most likely doomed to failure; a potential calamity on a grand scale. By late 1942 (the proposed time frame for the invasion) U.S. forces on Oahu alone were far superior, at least in numbers, to the proposed Japanese invasion force. Ghastly attrition of invasion troops would have been unavoidable, even if the campaign was ultimately successful. And once in control of Hawaii, Japan clearly didn't have the logistic capacity to sustain themselves there--there's no way their merchant marine could have replaced the necessary constant flow of supplies coming from the U.S. Both conquerers and conquered would have faced cruel deprivation in a few short months.
. Clearly, Hawaii would have been Japan's "Bridge Too Far." Everyone--Japanese, Hawaiians, and other Americans--were far better off because the Battle of Midway put an abrupt end to the whole idea.
. In summary, this is a fascinating topic that will hold the interest of any serious student of WWII in the Pacific. Dr. Stephan's treatment of it is highly detailed, thoroughly researched, and presented in a manner that holds the reader's interest from cover to cover.

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