Anahulu: The Anthropology of History in the Kingdom of Hawaii, Volume 1 - by Patrick Vinton Kirch & Marshall Sahlins (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the late 1700s, Hawaiian society began to change rapidly as it responded to the growing world system of capital whose trade routes and markets crisscrossed the islands. Reflecting many years of collaboration between Marshall Sahlins, a prominent social anthropologist, and Patrick V. Kirch, a leading archaeologist of Oceania, Anahulu seeks out the traces of this transformation in a typical local center of the kingdom founded by Kamehameha: the Anahulu river valley of northwestern Oahu.

Volume I shows the surprising effects of the encounter with the imperial forces of commerce and Christianity--the distinctive ways the Hawaiian people culturally organized the experience, from the structure of the kingdom to the daily life of ordinary people. Volume II examines the material record of changes in local social organization, economy and production, population, and domestic settlement arrangements.

From the Back Cover

From the late 1700s, Hawaiian society began to change rapidly to the impinging world system of capital whose trade routes and markets crisscrossed the Pacific Ocean. Yet the transformation was far from one-sided, and indigenous Hawaiian cultural structure proved as critical to the emerging interaction as those of the European and American newcomers.

About the Author

Marshall Sahlins is the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. Patrick V. Kirch is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former chair of the division of archaeology at the University of Hawaii.