More than a decade after her groundbreaking text Aloha Betrayed, Noenoe K. Silva (Kanaka Hawai‘i) has published another brilliant and much-needed contribution to several scholarly fields, including intellectual history, indigenous studies, and Hawaiian historiography. In The Power of the Steel-Tipped Pen, Silva seeks to “further the project of mapping Kanaka Hawai‘i (Native Hawaiian) intellectual history” (1). This project not only serves to add nuance to scholarly understandings of Hawaii's history by considering the often-ignored archive of Hawaiian-language texts, but, more importantly, contributes to the indigenous sovereignty movement in Hawaii. Aligning herself with other indigenous scholars such as Robert Allen Warrior, Silva asserts her work as one of “intellectual sovereignty,” recognizing that “our intellectual work is necessarily bound to our sovereignty struggles” (8, 9).

The Power of the Steel-Tipped Pen is made up of two main sections. The first focusses on schoolteacher Joseph Ho‘ona‘auao Kānepu‘u (1824–c.1885), and the second on lawyer Joseph Moku‘ōhai Poepoe (1852–1913), both Hawaiian writer–intellectuals who regularly published mo‘olelo (story, legend, narrative), mele (song lyrics, poetry set to chant), and political commentary in various nineteenth- and early twentieth-century nūpepa (Hawaiian-language newspapers). Silva argues that these two men chose to write because they shared aloha ‘āina, a commitment to their land and people; kuleana, a feeling of responsibility to teach through writing; and mo‘okū‘auhau consciousness, an understanding of their place in a past and future lineage that necessitated their passing on of ancestral knowledge for future generations (3, 4, 7). The Power of the Steel-Tipped Pen, much like Silva's earlier work Aloha Betrayed, relies almost exclusively on archival nūpepa in an effort to challenge existing, dominant histories of Hawaii that often solely utilize English-language sources. In doing so, Silva challenges “empiricist or other haole [foreign, white, Western] ideas of what counts as knowledge” (10).

Chapter 1 provides biographical information on Joseph Kānepu‘u, the first subject of Silva's text, and a history of nūpepa from the 1850s through 1880s, the period during which Kānepu‘u published. She also describes her method of translation and literary analysis as informed by indigenous epistemologies and systems of knowledge, contrasting this method to that of historic translations by Western scholars. These translations failed to interpret Hawaiian knowledge through the epistemological framework from which they were written and often produced “nonsensical” misinterpretations of mele and mo‘olelo (29). Chapters 2 and 3 contain Silva's close readings and interpretations of a few important mo‘olelo and works of geography by Kānepu‘u. Within these texts, Silva identifies the ways Kānepu‘u described traditional place names for geographic locations and used literary devices such as ‘ōlelo no‘eau (idioms, proverbs), kaona (layered meanings) and allusions to other mo‘olelo to critique settler colonialism and share knowledge with his fellow nineteenth-century Hawaiians and for Hawaiians in the future. Silva argues that through his writing, Kānepu‘u “fulfilled his kuleana” and showed his aloha ‘āina and mo‘okū‘auhau consciousness, making himself “a conduit for the ancient thought, speech, artistry, and practices of his ancestors for us, his descendants” (100, 81).

In Part II, Silva turns her attention to Joseph Moku‘ōhai Poepoe, who worked as a writer–intellectual, educator, and activist during the forced overthrow of the monarchy by US American settler colonizers in 1895, a turning point in Hawaiian history. Chapter 4 describes Poepoe's wealthy upbringing and his political activism through writing, nūpepa publishing, and protest during the late nineteenth century. Silva argues that Poepoe's shift from active opposition of the American-written Bayonet Constitution of 1887 to support for American annexation in 1896 demonstrates the complexity of Hawaiian resistance to settler colonialism. Through his writing, Silva is able to ascertain that Poepoe chose to prioritize the survival of Hawaiian knowledges, language, and culture over complete independence from settler rule (126). Chapters 5 and 6 focus again on close readings of several works. Silva's analyses of Poepoe's mele and mo‘olelo demonstrate his mo‘okū‘auhau consciousness and a dedication to recording ancient Hawaiian history and knowledge of the ‘āinu (land). Silva argues that Poepoe was responding to his moment in history in which Western schooling and settler colonial rule necessitated the recording of indigenous epistemologies and knowledges for current and future Hawaiians (150, 175).

In her conclusion, Silva reiterates the importance of intellectual sovereignty. The reading of Hawaiian-language archival sources leads to a fuller understanding not only of the “ancestral world of native epistemology and ontology,” but also of the historic strategies used by Hawaiians to oppose and resist the effects of colonialism (211). Silva's text demonstrates the endless possibilities available in the Hawaiian-language archive for contributing “to a sense of intellectual genealogy” and inspiring an “intellectual resurgence” in Hawaii (212, 213). The Power of the Steel-Tipped Pen adds to the growing literature on Hawaiian intellectual and political thought, including recent texts such as Adria Imada's Aloha America (2012), which considers the performance of hula by Hawaiian women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as intellectual thought and political action, and David Chang’s The World and All the Things upon It (2016), which focusses on nineteenth-century Hawaiian intellectual understandings of global geography and exploration. The Power of the Steel-Tipped Pen, along with Aloha Betrayed, should be considered required reading for those in indigenous studies, Hawaiian and Pacific islands studies, and intellectual history.