The author of
Assassination Vacation and
The Wordy Shipmates brings us another gem, albeit one with a more mournful tone. Vowell tells us the story of American contact with the kingdom of Hawaii to the time of our country's annexation of those islands during the McKinley administration, and it's a sad one. In Vowell's characteristic style, though, momentous history is interspersed with personal, political, and sexual oddities of all kinds, which makes for one-of-a-kind listening (and reading). There are plenty of villains; they are, alas, greatly outnumbered by the victims.
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