Graham’s emphasis on the importance of the availability and control of water in shaping Molokai—and the Hawaiian islands in general—brings to mind debates about Karl Wittfogel’s theory of hydraulic despotism in Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New York, 1957). It is also redolent of the influential lineage of ecologically oriented anthropologists—Steward, Rappaport, Netting, and Sahlins, among others—whose theories of socio-ecological change helped to shape the work of early environmental historians such as Worster.1 Little wonder that Worster enthusiastically praises Graham’s work in his foreword.
Braided Waters offers a broadly chronological environmental history of the Hawaiian Islands, and Molokai in particular, beginning with the first 800 or so years of Polynesian settlement, followed by a series of chapters organized around important demarcations in Hawaiian ecological and economic history. By the time the first humans arrived on the islands, several million years of isolated evolution had produced stunning...