Author: stephchun

Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawaii Back in Print

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Manual of the Flowering PlantsManual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai‘i, by Warren L. Wagner, Derral R.Herbst, and S. H. Sohmer, is available once again. The reprinting of the 2-volume revised edition, “the most significant botanical publication on Pacific plants in recent decades” (Flora Vitiensis Nova), was made possible by funding from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of National History Publication Fund and Walcott Botanical Fund.

Praise for the first edition:
“The most complete and beautifully presented manual that this reviewer has ever seen. It will be an indispensable tool for serious students of the flora of Hawaii.” —Choice

“A very important tool for years to come for botanists studying the floristic and biogeographic questions involving these islands. The authors of this two volume set are to be commended on the production of a significant contribution to the understanding of an extremely interesting flora.” —Phytologia

Literature and Resurgence in Okinawa

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Living SpiritThroughout its difficult history, Okinawa has remained strong, and today its spirit is more vibrant and dynamic than ever. Celebrating the cultural resurgence that began in the 1960s, Living Spirit: Literature and Resurgence in Okinawa, edited by Frank Stewart and Katsunori Yamazato, presents acclaimed contemporary fiction and poetry, as well as drama, song, and essay. Also included are Higa Yasuo’s remarkable photographs capturing the timeless world of the islands’ maternal deities.

Manoa 23:1
July 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3617-7 / $20.00 (PAPER)

Conservation of Pacific Sea Turtles

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Conservation of Pacific Sea TurtlesHistorically efforts to conserve Pacific sea turtles have focused on nesting sites to protect eggs and breeding females; mortality from coastal and highseas fisheries was not addressed. In the past five years, recovery has widened to include rigorously curtailing fishing and technological fixes that lower rates of incidental sea turtle deaths during fishing. Although each of these approaches shows promise, it has become increasingly clear that they alone will not recover severely depleted populations. Recognizing the urgency of the problem, Conservation of Pacific Sea Turtles, edited by Peter Dutton, Dale Squires, and Mahfuzuddin Ahmed, presents ideas and case studies by conservation biologists, economists, marine life policy experts, fishing industry and fisheries professionals, management specialists, and development assistance researchers.

July 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3407-4 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

Writing from These Roots Now Available in Paperback

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Writing from These Roots

Writing from These Roots: Literacy in a Hmong-American Community is the winner of the 2009 Outstanding Book Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

“Writing from These Roots richly conceptualizes the study of literacy by considering its historical, personal, institutional, cultural, and transnational dimensions. . . . [It is a] fascinating account that takes [readers] across continents, across decades of recent history. The dimensions of literacy that [are brought] forward in [this] volume are beneath the surface of all our students’ literate acts and ought to be the subject of our study and our pedagogy.” —Conference on College Composition and Communication Award Committee

July 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3615-3 / $21.00 (PAPER)

American Aloha Now Available in Paperback

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American Aloha

“Until now our only look at folk festivals has been through the eyes of visitors or through the insider eyes of folklorists and others who practice ‘public folklore and folklife’ as they have worked on such festivals. Diamond’s fine book places the reader between those two poles of naïve appreciation and heavily-invested, insider commentary.” —The Yearbook for Traditional Music

“A critical, multi-vocal case study that explores tradition, representation, cultural commodification, identity, tourism, sovereignty, and nationalism through the processes and outcomes of culture brokering for public consumption. . . . American Aloha will interest a broad readership interested in Hawaiian culture and history, museums, representation, tourism, and the construction of nationalism. Diamond’s skill at weaving theoretical themes with detailed data and anecdotes makes the book read like a collection of personal memories and characters with whom the reader can identify.” —The Contemporary Pacific

July 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3616-0 / $21.00 (PAPER)

Vietnamese American Literature in English

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My VietTwentieth-century America reduced Vietnam to “’Nam”: the surreal site of a military nightmare. The early twenty-first century has seen the revision of this image to recognize the people and culture of Vietnam itself. Vietnamese Americans, both immigrants and the American children of immigrants, have participated in changing this perception, consistently presenting their side of the story in memoirs published since the 1960s. My Viet: Vietnamese American Literature in English, 1962-Present, edited by Michele Janette, is the first anthology to provide a comprehensive overview of these memoirs and the historical picture they offer and to include Vietnamese writing that goes beyond memoir, revealing a new generation of Vietnamese American poetry, fiction, and drama.

“This book brings together, for the first time ever, work that showcases the depth and breadth of Vietnamese diaspora writers in English. It provides a very valuable resource for teaching, as well as for study, and makes a major contribution to the fields of American literature, Asian American literature, Viet Nam war studies, ethnic studies and Southeast Asian area studies.” —Renny Christopher, California State University

July 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3550-7 / $25.00 (PAPER)

New in the Dimensions of Asian Spirituality Series

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SikhismSikhism offers a comprehensive overview of the religion, which originated in India’s Punjab region five hundred years ago. As the numbers of Sikhs settling outside of India continues to grow, it is necessary to examine this religion both in its Indian context and as an increasingly global tradition. While acknowledging the centrality of history and text in understanding the main tenets of Sikhism, Doris Jakobsh highlights the religion’s origins and development as a living spiritual tradition in communities around the world. She pays careful attention to particular events, movements, and individuals that have contributed to important changes within the tradition and challenges stereotypical notions of Sikh homogeneity and stasis, addressing the plurality of identities within the Sikh tradition, both historically and within the contemporary milieu.

Dimensions of Asian Spirituality
July 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3601-6 / $17.00 (PAPER)

Gender and Identity in Liao and Jin China

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Women of the Conquest DynastiesChina’s historical women warriors hailed from the northeast (Manchuria) during the Liao (907–1125) and Jin (1115–1234) dynasties. Celebrated in the Liao History, they were “unprecedented.” They rode horseback astride, were good at hunting and shooting, and took part in military battles. Several empresses—and one famous bandit chief—led armies against the enemy Song state. Women of the Conquest Dynasties: Gender and Identity in Liao and Jin China, by Linda Cooke Johnson, represents a groundbreaking effort to survey the customs and lives of these women from the Kitan and Jurchen tribes who maintained their native traditions of horsemanship, militancy, and sexual independence while excelling in writing poetry and prose and earning praise for their Buddhist piety and Confucian ethics. Although much work has been devoted in the last few years to Chinese women of various periods, this is the first volume to incorporate recent archaeological discoveries and information drawn from Liao and Jin paintings as well as literary sources and standard historical accounts.

July 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3404-3 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawaii

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Fighting in Paradise
Powerful labor movements played a critical role in shaping modern Hawai‘i, beginning in the 1930s, when International Longshore and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) representatives were dispatched to the islands to organize plantation and dock laborers. The wartime civil liberties crackdown brought union organizing to a halt; but as the war wound down, Hawai‘i workers’ frustrations boiled over, leading to an explosive success in the forming of unions. During the 1950s, just as the ILWU began a series of successful strikes and organizing drives, the union came under McCarthyite attacks and persecution. Based on exhaustive archival research in Hawai‘i, California, Washington, and elsewhere, Fighting in Paradise: Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawai‘i, by Gerald Horne, is the gripping story of Hawaii workers’ struggle to unionize; it reads like a suspense novel as it details for the first time how radicalism and racism helped shape Hawaii in the twentieth century.

“Gerald Horne offers readers an eye-opening account explaining how the labor movement and the left played decisive roles in moving Hawai‘i from feudal colony to the most progressive state in the union. Deeply researched and highly textured, Fighting in Paradise should be required reading for all citizens, Mainlanders especially, who seek to extricate our increasingly multicultural nation from its contemporary difficulties.” —Nelson Lichtenstein, Director, Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, University of California, Santa Barbara

July 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3549-1 / $28.99 (PAPER)

A Japanese Historian in the Outback

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Gurindji Journey
After immersing himself in the culture of a remote Australian Indigenous community for close to a year, the young Japanese scholar Minoru Hokari emerged with a new world view. Gurindji Journey: A Japanese Historian in the Outback tells of Hokari’s experience living with the Gurindji people of Daguragu and Kalkaringi in the Northern Territory of Australia, absorbing their way of life and beginning to understand Aboriginal modes of seeing and being.

“Gurindji Journey makes an important contribution to indigenous and subaltern histories without the usual dryness of academic prose. Hokari’s insights into different ways of perceiving the past are fresh and illuminating.” —Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago

June 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3614-6 / $29.00 (PAPER)

Revised History of Guam

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Destiny's Landfall
Like its predecessor, this revised edition of Destiny’s Landfall, by Robert F. Rogers, is intended for general readers and students of the history, politics, and government of the Pacific region. Its narrative spans more than 450 years, beginning with the initial written records of Guam by members of Magellan 1521 expedition and concluding with the impact of the recent global recession on Guam’s fragile economy.

Praise for the first edition, recipient of the Guam Humanities Council’s Lifetime Contribution Award:
“A definitive reference work on the subject of Guam. . . . Replete with a panoply of colorful incidents, written in an easy style that eschews academic prose, and sprinkled with colorful colloquialisms . . . Destiny’s Landfall should hold the attention of the most jejune undergraduate student. For the serious scholar of Pacific Island history, it furnishes far more than just a comprehensive coverage of Guam because of its many references linking Guam developments with those in other island areas. And its inclusion of a vast array of detail, fleshing out the broader sweep of Guam’s history, should make this book a useful reference source for all.” —Isla: A Journal of Micronesian Studies

July 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3334-3 / $37.00 (PAPER)

Latest Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication

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Sivisa Titan
There are few published grammars of the languages of the Admiralty Islands. Sivisa Titan, by Claire Bowern, makes available valuable data compiled by Po Minis and the New Britain missionary P. Josef Meier for the Titan language. Meier published seventy-five texts in Titan (the corpus is about 25,000 words) in the journal Anthropos between 1906 and 1909 and an addendum in 1912. Stories contain brief information about the speakers and are glossed word-for-word in German and occasionally Latin.

Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication, No. 38
April 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3552-1 / $40.00 (PAPER)

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