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1972, Random House
'There are few areas on the planet where the pendulum of
history have swung more wildly than in Hawaii,' writes Francine
du Plessix Gray. 'In the two decades following the end of World
War II, Hawaii was transformed from an oppressed and semi-feudal
society to a progressive state which boasts the greatest racial
equality, some of the highest union wages, and the most liberal
legislature of any state in the union.' Yet America's island
estate remains in turbulent transition. With it's economy perilously
dependant on a giant military establishment, it's financial
future in the hands of a tiny group of freewheeling conglomerates,
it's commercial life strongly influenced by a vigorous Chinese-American
minority, it's political affairs in part dominated by Americans
of Japanese ancestry, and it's native Hawaiians aroused to a
new, self-conscious nationalism, Hawaii is the most fascinating,
complex, nd unpredictable of American states. Mrs. Gray's portrait
of Hawaii provides the mainlander as well as the islander with
an invaluable insight into the past, present, and future of
our fiftieth state - a view of Hawaii that picks up, according
to James Michener, where his novel "Hawaii" leaves
off.
"Three cheers for Francine Gray! Her book picks up where
my novel Hawaii ended. But it does more than that. With
a sharp ear for actual dialogue, with a devestating wit, and
with a keen sense of social and political developments, Mrs.
Gray has summarized recent happenings in our fiftieth state.
She is a furious champion of the native-born Hawaiians and does
for them what earlier writers have done for the American Negro,
the Chicano, and the Indian. In doing so, she takes wide swipes
at the military who occupy the island, the Japanese who run
it politically, the Chinese who seem about to run it economically,
and the missionary descendants who really run it. I am glad
that she wrote this book. The citizens of Hawaii will be so
busy discussing it that I can slip back home unnoticed."
James A. Michener
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