Hawai’i offers a unique window into how societies work. First settled by human beings from Polynesia between 750 and 800 years ago, the islands were isolated from outside contact for three or four centuries, discovered by Europeans in 1778, annexed by the United States in 1898, and made a state in 1959. An archipelago of four main islands and numerous smaller ones, conditions for agriculture were favorable and an economy capable of providing a substantial standard of living developed early. Malthusian forces were always in play, but the islands developed unique governments, institutions, and cultures to coordinate their societies and, for much of its history, competition between islands and rulers. A century of colonialism, immigration of foreign labor into a relatively homogenous population and culture, intrusion of foreign capital and businesses, a self-initiated dismantling of the native religion, an intense missionary effort by Christian sects. The consolidation of a centralized political authority enabled by the first Hawaiian’s to take advantage of European weaponry, a coup fomented by American interests, a colonial dependency under American rule and then a transition to independent statehood with the framework of the United States. Hawaiian history has it all.

Sumner La Croix’s excellent book makes use of the recent outpouring of new insights in Hawaiian history. Based in part on anthropology, led by the work of scholars like Timothy Earle and Patrick Kirch, and in part on the rich documentary and narrative work of Hawai’i historians like Ralph Kuykendall. La Croix weaves together a long narrative with embedded pieces of deeper research. One of the book’s strengths is the steady focus on the interaction of economic and politics both in the short and long run. The focus gives structure to a central set of questions about the institutions governing land, land ownership, land use, and income from land with implications for income, welfare, and the economy on the one hand, and political dynamics on the other. The book’s other strength is using cliometric tools to delve into specific questions the larger narrative unearths. The combination of the two is very well done.

One of the challenges of research and writing an economic history of a single society over a substantial period of time is simultaneously maintaining a sense of endogeneity, that many things happening are interconnected and somehow keeping those connections at the center of the history, while also finding ways to show the directions of the connections, a sense of what is causing what. By focusing on the interaction of politics and economics La Croix accomplishes the first task, and by exploiting the clearly exogenous interventions into Hawaiian society throughout its history, he accomplishes the second.

This is definitely an economic history of Hawai’i, there are no questions about external validity nor does La Croix draw larger implications from his history. Nonetheless, the book provides nuanced and persuasive evidence on the importance of political stability and instability for both human welfare and the forces that structure of institutions in any society; how the interaction of technology and institutions affects economic, political, and social development; and how unique, rich, and variegated every human society actually is.