Unfamiliar Fishes

by Sarah Vowell, Riverhead Books. 292 pages.

A remarkable and completely original book that I picked up for all the wrong reasons, Unfamiliar Fishes is one of the most unique takes on America's propensity for manifest destiny that I've encountered. After seeing Ms. Vowell on the Daily Show, I thought this book was about the Spanish-American War, the one that resulted in the annexation of the South Pacific and introduced America to the joys of world domination. In fact, the Span-Am War only enters the book just after the 200th page; before that, Ms. Vowell gives a sharply written course on Hawaiian-American relations, beginning with the arrival of New England missionaries and ending eighty years later when Hawaii's annexation is railroaded through Congress while everyone else is distracted by war.

What makes Unfamiliar Fishes such an extraordinary read is both its focus - Ms. Vowell views most of the history through the missionary-convert relationship - and its style, which is an elegant hybrid of memoir and history. Unlike other historians, who tend to mask their prejudice behind a voice of academic neutrality, Ms. Vowell does not try to hide her wry sense of humor or her own bias. To see what I mean, watch this clip of Ms. Vowell reading the opening pages of the book:

Near the start of the book, Ms. Vowell candidly discusses the mirror between what America's cultural imperialists did to Hawaii and what they did to her own ancestors, the Cherokees who were exiled by the government along the infamous Trail of Tears. It's a unique comparison and, having made it, Ms. Vowell then proceeds to use it as the lens through which the reader should see the story of 19th century Hawaii.

It's a fascinating story that includes an incestuous monarchy, passionate preachers and whalers so intent on having their way with Hawaiian women that they threatened destruction less the King repeal the laws against prostitution. The title of the book, in case you're wondering, comes from a letter written by Hawaiian writer Daniel Malo: "If a big wave come in, large and unfamiliar fishes will come from the dark ocean and when they see the small fishes of the shallows, they will eat them up." This, Ms. Vowell contends, is what happened to Hawaii and she paints a stark portrait of missionaries (who even she admits had good intentions) converting the morals of the Hawaiian monarchy, which led to the creation of a constitutional government and, eventually, the influx of white settlers who bought up all the land. The subsequent battle for Hawaii lasted nearly seventy years and touched nearly half a dozen presidencies - Unfamiliar Fishes is the first book in a long time in which I've seen both Benjamin Harrison and John Tyler's name in print (it was nice to learn they were more then just caretaker presidents).

American cultural imperialism continues well into the twenty-first century and, as Ms. Vowell demonstrates, annexation can be an accidental by-product of Americanization. The last twenty pages of the book read like a casebook of political maneuvering- despite the refusal of one president (Cleveland) and the 1898 Senate to approve a treaty of annexation, politicians (in conjunction with the corrupt oligarchy which overthrew the Hawaiian queen) pushed a bill through that made Hawaii part of the United States. It's almost certain that such maneuverings continue today and for this reason Unfamiliar Fishes is surprisingly timely, as it manages to explore the deepest roots of American imperialism.