A biography of Liliuokalani, Queen of Hawaii from 1891 to 1893, discussing her life growing up as a royal child, and considering the historical, political, social, and economic changes that occurred during her lifetime and especially during her rulership in the years immediately before Hawaii was annexed to the United States.

These are among the records seized by order of Republic of Hawaii officials in 1895 with the intent of obtaining evidence that she had prior knowledge of the 1895 counterrevolution.

In 1897, as a white oligarchy made plans to allow the United States to annex Hawai'i, native Hawaiians organized a massive petition drive to protest. Ninety-five percent of the native population signed the petition, causing the annexation treaty to fail in the U.S. Senate. This event was unknown to many contemporary Hawaiians until Noenoe K. Silva rediscovered the petition in the process of researching this book. With few exceptions, histories of Hawai'i have been based exclusively on English-language sources. They have not taken into account the thousands of pages of newspapers, books, and letters written in the mother tongue of native Hawaiians. By rigorously analyzing many of these documents, Silva fills a crucial gap in the historical record. In so doing, she refutes the long-held idea that native Hawaiians passively accepted the erosion of their culture and loss of their nation, showing that they actively resisted political, economic, linguistic, and cultural domination. Drawing on Hawaiian-language texts, primarily newspapers produced in the nineteenth century and early twentieth, Silva demonstrates that print media was central to social communication, political organizing, and the perpetuation of Hawaiian language and culture. A powerful critique of colonial historiography, Aloha Betrayed provides a much-needed history of native Hawaiian resistance to American imperialism.

His Hawaiian Excellency: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy and the Annexation of Hawai'i is an historical novel dealing with the unusual and moving history of Hawai'i. It is based on the life of Colonel Curtis Pi'ehu 'Iaukea, who was one of the Kingdom's premier diplomats. Closely following the unfolding of actual events, the scenes are set in the Islands, in Russia, the Suez Canal, and in England. There arises a colorful history before us filled with tragedy, comedy, love and hate, duty and opportunism, conspiracy and loyalty. Developments in Hawai'i and Russia are compared and questions of a universal nature are raised about men, women, politics, and religion. Given the recent epochal developments in both Eastern Europe and Hawai'i the book does not only address the reader who wishes to learn more about the island state in the middle of the Pacific, but may also contribute to the ongoing debate about the past, present and future of Hawai'i.

An award-winning author tells the stories of the audacious American politicians, military commanders, and business executives who took it upon themselves to depose monarchs, presidents, and prime ministers of other countries with disastrous long-term consequences.