Pacific Paradises

by Trevor Lummis

A story of cultures in collision. The reality of the colonisation of Tahiti and Hawaii by western powers is a shameful catalogue of misunderstanding and betrayal. In a final irony, western society now embraces many of the qualities held by the 'noble savages'.

Genres: History

224 pages, Hardcover

First published September 25, 2005

Reviews

[Tara van Beurden]

We have this concept in Australia called ‘Schoolies week’. Its kinda like Spring Break. Basically, upon completion of Year 12 (our ‘senior’ year), most students will take a week long holiday (most of the time at the Gold Coast, about an hour’s drive from where I live). Schoolies is barely tolerated debauchery (if you go to the Gold Coast, I went to the Sunshine Coast – it was much tamer) as a result of illegal alcohol consumption. My sister graduated Year 12 last year and we decided that rather than go to the Gold Coast, we (as in her, me, our mother and one of our brothers) would go to Hawaii instead. So last November, we all trooped off to Hawaii. Beforehand however, I decided to read what I could on Hawaii. Unfortunately my local library system was pretty hopeless, and this was pretty much the only non-fiction book I could find. Still I’m glad I picked it up, because when I finally did get to Hawaii, I actually knew a number of the answers to the questions tour guides regularly ask (it also helped me correct a host at a trivia night). Captain Cook is famous in Australia for discovering us (well, for England anyway. The Aboriginals obviously were already here). But he is also found a few other places, Hawaii being one of them. This book looked through the discovering of both Tahiti and Hawaii and what is known about both cultures prior to their ‘discovery’ and what damage was done to said cultures after English (and Spanish, American etc) contact. It’s really quite disturbing to see how much damage was done to these cultures in the name of ‘progress’ and ‘civilizing the savages’, and how much we’ve come to realize that maybe their lifestyles were actually not so bad after all, and maybe we could have learnt something from them. This book is short but gives a solid overview of the main players in the discoveries of both islands and in particular, gave me a nice little understanding of the history of Hawaii’s monarchy in order to equip me sufficiently for when I was there. Definitely recommended if you don’t know a lot about either island and want to get a good overview of their history.

[Paul]

The author adds to the usual historical account by contrasting ordinary life in Great Britain with life in Tahiti and Hawaii at the time. The work of the early missionaries is well documented and the author creatively exposes their lack of cultural awareness by quoting from their actual missionary records. I found this book very interesting.