The World and All the Things upon It: Native Hawaiian Geographies of Exploration

Description

What if we saw indigenous people as the active agents of global exploration rather than as the passive objects of that exploration? What if, instead of conceiving of global exploration as an enterprise just of European men such as Columbus or Cook or Magellan, we thought of it as an enterprise of the people they discovered ? What could such a new p

David A. Chang (Native Hawaiian) is associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of The Color of the Land: Race, Nation, and the Politics of Land Ownership in Oklahoma, 1832-1929.

"In The World and All the Things upon It, David A. Chang places Hawai'i, both literally and figuratively, at the center of the world. His fascinating explorations of Kanaka Maoli histories throughout the nineteenth-century Pacific puts Hawaiian studies in powerful conversation with some of the most exciting and rapidly changing fields of historical inquiry across this vast region."-Coll Thrush, author of Indigenous London: Native Travellers at the Heart of Empire "David A. Chang's research and analysis is fresh and makes an outstanding and vital contribution to our knowledge. The World and All the Things upon It is a work of aloha 'aina, love of the land and our native people."-Noenoe Silva, University of Hawai'i "Chang not only provides a voice to the history of the Hawaiian people, he also enriches the understanding of world history and global exploration by revealing ways that local peoples globalized their own world. Highly recommended."-CHOICE "Chang's work adds to the growing studies of indigenous geographies and to the fields of Hawaiian history and world history, challenging readers to rethink global encounters by centering such encounters on the perspectives and systems of knowledge of Kanaka Maoli."-Journal of Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) "Chang makes arguments that are supported by strong research. Chang identifies his book as belonging to part of a larger group of scholars like Noenoe Silva who are pushing against the traditional colonial versions of history that focus on the colonizer." -Pacific Historical Review