Unsustainable Empire

“This is an absolutely brilliant book on the little-known or remembered struggle over statehood and the role of white supremacy in Asian settler colonialism and supposed multicultural equality in Hawai‘i. It is timely, necessary, and exceedingly well-argued. Unsustainable Empire reveals how nonhaole settler colonialism in Hawai‘i works, how the myth of multiculturalism in the statehood movement operated, and what the legacy of statehood is today. Importantly, the book introduces us to the Kanaka and non-Kanaka characters who fought against statehood based on ideas of justice for Kanaka.” — Noenoe K. Silva, author of The Power of the Steel-Tipped Pen: Reconstructing Native Hawaiian Intellectual History

"Beautifully written and robustly theorized, Unsustainable Empire provides a much-needed intellectual, epistemological, and political intervention in multiple fields as it challenges the segregation of knowledge production in relation to Hawai‘i and the distinctions between indigeneity, race, and ethnicity. One of the book’s best features is its polished and refined way of retelling Hawaii’s history in a way that turns prevailing orthodoxy on its head, offering a sustained interrogation in an accessible and exciting way.” — J. Kehaulani Kauanui, author of Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State Nationalism