585
Canada and the United States
the relationship between new technologies and labor
militancy in the Industrial Workers of the World.
More importantly, he makes important links between
labor history and environmental studies, demonstrates
the importance of comparative history, shows how
neither private ownership nor state ownership of lands
guarantees a sustainable environment, and makes
clear the links between human and environmental
exploitation.
Rajala has written a theoretically informed, wellresearched, and deftly argued monograph, and an
extensive bibliography and appropriate photographs
further add to its richness. This challenging book
ought to find a wide readership and secure a prominent place among the growing corpus of recent studies
into the Pacific raincoast's past and the region's current forest crisis.
ROBERT BUNTING
Fort Lewis College
Unconquerable Rebel: Robert W
Wilcox and Hawaiian Politics, 1880-1903. Niwot: University Press of Colorado. 1996. Pp. 299. $34.95.
ERNEST ANDRADE, JR ..
Robert W. Wilcox was a half-native Hawaiian politician who enlivened Hawaiian politics during the last
two decades of the nineteenth century, his last office
being that of Hawaii's first territorial representative in
the U.S. Congress. Along the way, Wilcox received
military training in Italy, married an Italian noblewoman (who later divorced him when she discovered
his rather modest social and economic status in Hawaii), and was tried twice for conspiracy and treason.
The first trial concerned his role in the insurrection of
1889 against the white-dominated government, which
had come to power in 1887 as the result of a revolt that
had forced the king to relinquish most of his powers. In
1895, Wilcox led another revolt against a similar
government that had overthrown the monarchy altogether in 1893. He was sentenced to death but was out
of jail in a few months.
Ernest Andrade, lr.'s Wilcox is a demagogic opportunist who deliberately inflamed racial animosities and
hatred for his own benefit. Though very popular with
native Hawaiians, he left little that was constructive
and enduring. He was a "comet" rather than a "star"
(p. 3). It is not an entirely convincing portrait, suggesting as it does that before Wilcox came on the scene,
there was little if any racial animosity between the
haoles (whites) and the native Hawaiians. Nor does the
book attempt to explain why appeals to racial solidarity were successful, beyond suggesting that such appeals were demagogic. Andrade is generally sympathetic to haole politicians, whom he portrays as more
reasonable and less given to emotional appeals than
native Hawaiians. He has little sympathy with Hawaiian royalists, who sought to perpetuate, and then
restore, the monarchy.
One of the larger problems is that the book makes
little attempt to analyze race relations or racial
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
thought in any depth. Given the importance of race as
a factor in popular culture and intellectual discourse in
the late nineteenth century, this is a significant shortcoming. The discussion of several specific incidentssuch as the various efforts to tame or overthrow the
monarchy, and the Hawaiian uprisings against haole
rule-would have benefited from such an analysis.
The book's strength is in its straightforward account
of Hawaiian politics. Indeed, Wilcox himself often
disappears for pages at a time as Andrade reviews,
sometimes in considerable detail, the development of
political parties, the accomplishments of particular
legislative sessions, and the efforts-mostly by haoles-to rein in the power of the monarch. Based on
extensive research in newspapers, government documents, and private papers, Andrade updates previous
accounts by Ralph S. Kuykendall and William A. Russ,
Jr.
The book also devotes considerable attention to
Hawaii's relations with the United States. In contrast
to Julius W. Pratt's Expansionists of 1898: The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands (1936), Andrade is not convinced that the decision of the U.S.
Consul John F. Stevens to land U.S. troops in 1893
demonstrated support for the rebels or ensured the
overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani-though he acknowledges that the queen viewed the presence of the troops
as indicating U.S. support for the rebellion. Rather,
the queen is blamed for her own downfall, the relevant
chapter being entitled significantly, "Self-Destruction
of the Monarchy."
After the overthrow, the newly elected President
Grover Cleveland sent James H. Blount to investigate
the situation. Blount's report condemned Stevens'
actions, concluded that most Hawaiians supported the
monarchy, and urged that the queen be restored.
Whereas Pratt considered Blount's investigation thorough and his conduct above reproach, Andrade echoes
contemporaneous Republican accounts that he was
biased.
In sum, this book will be of interest to specialists in
Hawaiian politics and in Hawaiian relations with the
United States. Its frankly revisionist interpretation is
provocative and will attract attention but is unlikely to
be persuasive.
KENTON CLYMER
University of Texas,
EI Paso
PRISCILLA MUROLO. The Common Ground of Womanhood: Class, Gender, and Working Girls' Clubs, 18841928. (Women in American History.) (The Working
Class in American History.) Champaign: University of
Illinois Press. 1997. Pp. xiv, 227. Cloth $29.95" paper
$14.95.
Priscilla Murolo's book presents a moment in U.S
women's labor history when a cross-class alliance of
primarily white, European-descent women in the
Northeast was possible and briefly accomplished. The
APRIL
1999