Unfamiliar Fishes
Sarah Vowell
Riverhead Trade
<p><b>From Puritans to heathens-Sarah Vowell takes on Hawaii in this  <i>New York Times</i> bestseller. </b></p><p>Of all the countries the United States invaded or colonized in 1898,  Sarah Vowell considers the story of the Americanization of Hawaii to be  the most intriguing. From the arrival of the New England missionaries  in 1820, who came to Christianize the local heathens, to the coup  d'état led by the missionaries' sons in 1893, overthrowing the Hawaiian  queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of  beguiling, if often appalling or tragic, characters. Whalers who fire  cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their god-given right to  whores; an incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her  brother-husband; sugar barons, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the  last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode "Aloha 'Oe"  serenaded the first Hawaiian-born president of the United States during  his 2009 inaugural parade.</p><p>With her trademark wry insights and reporting, Vowell sets out to  discover the odd, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth  state. In examining the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn, she  finds America again, warts and all.</p>