Francine du Plessix Gray
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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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