Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen by Lili’uokalani

Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen by Lili‘uokalani; narrated by Emily Woo Zeller | 2018; originally published 1898 | Tantor Media | Audiobook $ 24.95

Queen Lili’uokalani was the last reigning monarch of the kingdom of Hawaii. She ascended the throne in January of 1891, upon the death of her brother, King David Kalakaua. For years after her overthrow, the Queen sought redress in the Congress and courts of the United States, but her efforts failed. Her autobiographical history, Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen is the only work by a Hawaiian monarch and provides insight into her fight to regain her throne and life in Hawaii during the late-nineteenth century.

When I was making my list for Classics Club, one of my goals was to include books from outside of my own country, and by authors from cultures different from my own. Queen Lili’uokalani’s own book fit the bill. Hawaii is now part of the U.S.A., of course, but at the time this book was written it was an independent land in flux, post-kingdom yet pre-annexation.

The book is not so much a history of Hawaii, which was my initial expectation, as it is a specific story about the life and overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani. Her account of her childhood and early adulthood is fascinating. She was simultaneously a royal representative of an ancient island nation with unique traditions and a modern diplomat of her time; she wore a holoku and a lei as well as a corset and a coronet, she sailed from island to island on a double-hulled canoe and sped across the continent on a railway; she hosted a luau within view of a volcanic lava flow and led a delegation to the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria.

This is more than an autobiography, though — it’s also a plea to world leadership to help restore her monarchy. Queen Lili’uokalani was overthrown after a complicated struggle over her country’s constitution, culminating in a foreigner-led coup in 1893. The author’s arguments are bolstered by a mix of righteous indignation over the trampling of native sovereignty and personal upset over losing her own title and properties. From my own point of view her arguments from the former perspective are much more compelling than her arguments from the latter, but I sympathize with her loss and think that overall she handled this tragedy with as much diplomacy and grace as humanly possible.

This is a fairly remarkable book in that it is a story told from the viewpoint of a loser in a political struggle; many losers in history have been censored or entirely silenced. I think it’s a good choice for the to-read list for anyone interested specifically in the history of Hawaii, or more generally in the history of the conquering of native peoples in America.

Links:

• Digitized 1st edition, signed by author from Smithsonian Libraries
• Biography from the National Women’s History Museum
• Lili’uokalani Trust
• National Historical Landmark Iolani Palace

Publication information: Lili‘uokalani. Hawaii’s story by Hawaii’s queen. Saybrook, CT: Tantor Media, 2018. Audiobook.
Source: Public library, via Overdrive/Libby.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.