of becoming
p. 42 · Read in the full issue
Atlas of islands still in process of becoming
Atlas of Hawaii (Second Edi tion) By the Department of Geography, University of Hawaii, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983. ISBN 0-8248-0837-1, $U529.95.
Since its initial publication a decade ago, the Atlas of Hawaii has secured its place as the first source book on the Hawaiian Islands. A project of the Univer sity of Hawaii’s Department of Geography, the Atlas is a rich compendium of knowledge on the Fiftieth American State.
It begins with descriptions of each of the islands, accompa nied by the most detailed maps available. The maps alone are worth the price of the book. No matter how many times a traveller has visited Hawaii, the Atlas’s cartography will provide additional lessons.
The Atlas’s second section deals with Hawaii’s natural en vironment. From landforms to geology to climate, botany, zoology, and astronomy, the Atlas’s authors describe for both the long-term resident and the visitor the grandeur and majesty of the islands.
They remind us, for example, that Hawaii is still in the process of becoming. Throughout the past year, volcanic eruptions have added to the land mass of the Big Island, and off the south-eastern coast of Hawaii yet another islet, Loihi, is in the making.
We’re reminded as well that on the peaks of the Big Island astronomers from Hawaii, Can ada and France are studying the heavens from one of the most ideal locations in the world.
In the Atlas’s third part, “The Cultural Environment,” State statistician Robert Schmitt pro
vides 14 pages of narrative and graphs on the State’s popula tion. Here, too, it is the story of a people in process. Over the past decade, Hawaii’s popula tion has grown an astounding 28 per cent, from 770,000 to 981,000. The decade also saw the Islands’ ethnic variety made even more various by the im migration of some 66,000 foreign-born.
The concluding section, de voted to “The Social Environ ment,” includes, perhaps, its most enlightening topic, land tenure. In a nation of land owners, Hawaii stands out as a throwback to feudalism. Of the State’s over four million acres of land, almost half is govern ment owned. Thirty-eight major land-owners control 1.7 million acres more. The remainder of the State’s people own only 500,000 acres.
The strengths of the Atlas of Hawaii are two. Its editor, R.
Warwick Armstrong, has gathered the best scholars working on Hawaii from a variety of fields: Schmitt on demographics, the late Gordon A. Macdonald on geology, Gavan Daws on history, and Dan Tuttle on politics, to name a few.
And even where the narra tive occasionally fails, the qua lity of the Atlas’s maps and tables more than compensates.
Indeed, the Atlas’s cartog raphers and artists may be its writers’ betters. Dan Boy lan.
Books received
Australia Goes To War 1939-45. By John Robertson. Published 1984 by Doubleday Australia Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 184, Lane Cove, NSW, 2066, Australia.
ISBN 0 86824 155 5. Price $29.95.
The Cuisine of the South Pacific. By Gwen Skinner. Published 1983 by Hod der and Stoughton, 44-46 View Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand.
ISBN 0 340 33875 X. Price $39.95.
Hula Ki’i: Hawaiian Puppetry. By Katherine Luomala. Published 1984 by The Institute for Polynesian Studies.
Available from University of Hawaii Press, 2840 Kolowalu Street. Honolulu, Hawaii, 96822. ISBN 0 939154 30 7.
Price U 5529.95.
Australian Books 1984: a select list of recent publications and standard works in print. National Library of Australia, Canberra A.C.T. 2600. ISSN 0067 1738. Price $6.50.
Backbone of the King: The story of Paka’a and his son Ku. By Marcia Brown. Published 1984 by University of Hawaii Press, 2840 Kolowalu Street, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96822. ISBN 0 8248 0963 7. Price U 5512.95.