At first glance, Rosenthal’s Beyond Hawai’i is a work of considerable promise. Using a mix of English and Hawaiian-language sources, Rosenthal provides a desperately needed examination of Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) laborers in the nineteenth century. The text weaves together the histories of Kanaka laborers, the industries in which they worked, the natural environment that these industries exploited, and the broader transition of Kānaka into capitalist labor. Each chapter uses a single individual as a lens into a specific industry, beginning with the Hawaiian sandalwood trade in the 1820s and then moving into the Pacific worlds of whaling, shipping, gold, and guano before returning to Hawai’i to examine sugar in the 1870s. The text relies, as much as possible, on first hand accounts by Kanaka laborers. Rosenthal deserves praise for amplifying their voices in his work.
Unfortunately, Beyond Hawai’i falls short as both Hawaiian and Pacific history, in part because...