James L. HaleyReseñas

Very enjoyable history of Hawai’i told in a dispassionate and seemingly unbiased manner that reveals both good and bad will among all players. The history reveals far more nuanced events with goals that sometimes conflicted and sometimes coincided.

Good, detailed biography, but I heard there is a better one, so I'm going to read that one too. He was a very fascinating character. Quite masculine, but very sensitive too.

A slow start but a fine finish to this latest Captain Putnam adventure. Off to quell pirates in the Pacific segues into Hawaii as a monarchy, missionaries, and very careful diplomacy.

Still a farmer at heart, Bliven Putnam does his duty and goes back to sea in a small sloop. Fretting over the impressment of his friend Sam challenges his concentration for his naval career. He does manage to be present when Old Ironsides becomes the nickname for the frigate USS Constitution as well as during both of her victories over British warships. A good insightful story about events little known to those who read about naval history during the Age of Sail.

In Wolf: the Lives of Jack London, James Haley skillfully portrays the many lives lived by one of America’s most beloved writers. From a poor work beast to an oyster pirate, a lawman with the fish patrol to a seal hunter, a tramp to a student, a prospector to an aspiring writer, a muckraker to a war correspondent, a lover to a celebrity, a sailor to a rancher, he finally succumbed to his failing health as a jaded and terminally ill 40-year-old.

Famous for The Call of the Wild, The Sea-Wolf, White Fang, John Barleycorn, and The Star-Rover, he was a prolific writer who never failed to turn out 1,000 pages a day. His short life was an interesting mix of fascinating adventures and a successive string of tragedies that he always found a way of over-coming until the very end. His life is best summed up by his credo: “The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

London did indeed use his time, as he left behind a vast and varied collection of essays, short stories, and novels. He was the first world-wide celebrity writer who made a fortune writing,
yet he was always broke due to his generosity and sense of duty in caring for those whom he loved. He was a fierce lover of animals, and he traveled the world seeking adventure, yet he was at his happiest and most at peace at his Beauty Ranch in the Valley of the Moon, in Glen Ellen, California, now the Jack London State Park, where he and his wife Charmian are buried.

Haley’s biography of Jack London is interring, honest, touching, but not sentimental. London would have approved of it I’m sure.

I enjoyed the book. I learned a lot about Jack London and came away with a better understanding of who he was.

In keeping up with my tradition of reading a little bit about every place I visit, I picked up this narrative history of the Hawaiian Islands in the Ala Moana bookstore in Honolulu. It had been released a few days earlier, so it was practically fresh off the presses.

I'm not sure what exactly qualifies Mr. James L. Haley as very suitable for the daunting task of writing down Hawaii's history. I'm pretty certain the moniker "independent scholar", touted on the cover, means that he's not a trained historian, however, I have to admit he does a reasonably good job of it. Particularly to be commended are his impartial ways, as he refuses to fall prone to several common traps, such as judging 19th century people from 21st century perspective and white-washing either the (often brutal) pre-contact Hawaiian culture or else the latter American, European and Asian influence. He also avoids putting important historical figures, such as Kamehameha the Conqueror or the last queen, Lili'uokalani, on pedestals and is in fact possibly more critical of them than the Hawaiians would be.

Naturally, the narrative starts with Captain Cook's "discovery" of the islands, his exploration of the archipelago and his eventual death on the Big Island. I was hoping for a bit more info on how life was like before European contact, but since the Polynesians never discovered writing, not much is known anyway, especially not about the first settlers who had been later conquered by Tahitian immigrants.

What follows is the description of Kamehameha's conquest of the entire island chain. I find this part to be possibly the least satisfactory one in the whole book. Not only do I feel that not enough ink was spent on such a crucially important persona as Kamehameha the Conqueror, but all the bloody battles fought to achieve the conquest are more mentioned than described. It is rather disappointing to have them listed in a factual way rather than having them pictured in one's mind, as it would be really interesting to see how the Hawaiians waged war and how the introduction of western-made weaponry and tactics had changed it all.

There's a couple more criticisms that could be leveled at Captive Paradise, such as too liberal use of footnotes (which reside in the back of the book, necessitating a lot of back-and-forth paging) and the dispatching of whole scores of years of Hawaiian history in a few paragraphs (particularly the post-annexation years - for example, the devastating tsunami of 1946 is not even mentioned and the attack on Pearl Harbor only in passing), but in the end I think the author achieves what he set out to do - provide a non-judgmental, non-biased overview of Hawaiian history. It falls short of literary greatness due to dry descriptions of historical figures and some important events, but that was probably never its goal, since it leans more towards academic narrative.

Bad writing. Interesting life. Interesting details are there, but plowing thru the prose is difficult at times.

Fair story with some lively fictional and real life characters of early days in the U.S. Navy. Putnam is a midshipman on a small US ship that defeats and captures a Muslim pirate ship. We follow his life on leave on the family farm in Connecticut Some good insights into the politics, economy and religions of this time period Research generally solid.
Returning to sea, he manages to be in most of the conflicts that his country faces in the Mediterranean so his promotion is rapid. Not a particularly believable career for the young man but sufficiently interested to read the next episode.

For lovers of historical fiction, this volume fills a giant void. Our schools teach almost nothing about the US Navy and its adventures in the Mediterranean circa 1800. Follow a young man from Connecticut as he battles pirates, trains his men in the operation of the ship's gunnery, and is initiated into the grown-up world of love. We read of sea battles in the great sailing ships, intrigue and politics in the dealings of the government officials, and the relationships that are formed by men in battle. I highly recommend this read and I thank the author and the Penguin First to Read program for a complimentary copy.

Mostly concerned with the intricacies of Hawaiian royal politics from the rise of Kamehameha to the fall of Queen Liliuokalani's government, Haley traces the path of how the Anglo-Saxon planter class came to predominate and regards it as pretty much inevitable that Hawaii was going to wind up being dominated by some great power. However, even if you make the argument that American predominance was the best of the bad options and keep in mind that there was much that was less than admirable about the traditional culture of the islands (such as the crushing caste system and the practice of human sacrifice) Haley sees no point in denying that there are the results of economic oppression that in all fairness need to be addressed.½

Very readable and yet sufficiently detailed. I was aware that Hawaii lost its independence o the US against the will of the Hawaiin royalty and e majority of native Hawaiins, but Haley does a good job of retracing the history of Hawaii from the first contacts with Europeans through annexation by the US. He seems to take a more tolerant view of the Christian missionaries than many recent historians and he also notes that with Vritain, France and the US all interested in acquiring control of Hawaii, maintaining complete autonomy may not have been possible. But Haley is open about his biases and notes where he disagrees with other historians. Uses lots of primary source material and writes in a narrative style that kept me engaged.

this is a clear account of the Red River War against the Comanches and Kiowas in 1874. I think that it is well balanced, and the issues and heroes get their day in court. The prose is readable, and I had a good time with it.

Quite an engaging and engrossing biography of Jack London. Haley places a strong emphasis on London as a dedicated socialist and champion of social justice, aspects of London I knew nothing about and found very interesting. What impresses me most is how much living London did in his short life and his prolific work ethic.

Jack London, the man who several years before Mark Twain’s death unseated Twain to become America’s favorite author, was a man of contrasts. Illegitimately born into a poverty stricken environment, for much of his adult life London would employ a full domestic staff, including a personal valet. Even as an avowed and outspoken advocate of socialism, he saw nothing wrong with living the luxurious lifestyle his personal labor eventually earned him. He was a staunch defender of the rights of “native peoples” but is said to have been a “racialist,” believing that no good would come from a mixing of the races.

London’s era was one still very much influenced by the sexual mores of the Victorian Age but he was always sexually active, even when married, and made little effort to explain his actions to either of his wives. He enjoyed the company of children but was never close to the two daughters he fathered by his first wife, allowing them effectively to slip out of his life. Those who knew him considered London a “spiritual” man, but he detested the way that religion helped maintain what he saw as an illegitimate and unjust society and considered himself an atheist. He was capable of superb writing but was willing to do as much “hackwork” as it took to support his lifestyle.

Even in death, London was a mystery. That he died in his sleep at age 40 is not disputed; the cause of his death, however, is still open to discussion. Did London die of an accidental overdose of morphine or, as many suspect, was he so depressed that he decided to take his own life that night. He was known to be upset about his health and the shape he was in but adamantly refused to change the lifestyle that was rapidly killing him. Even had he not died as he did, it is unlikely that Jack London would ever have seen his fifties.

All of this is explored in Wolf: The Lives of Jack London, James Haley’s recent Jack London biography. Hayley approaches London’s life by dividing it into segments based on the various occupations that occupied him during his 40 years. Those occupations range from what London called “work beast” (when, as a youth, he worked in places such as a pickle factory for ten cents an hour) to pirate, seal hunter, hobo, student, gold prospector, writer, muckraker, war correspondent, sailor and rancher. Each of these jobs is given its own chapter treatment; other chapters include those on London the “lover” and London the “celebrity.”

Haley’s technique works well to explain how Jack London managed to reinvent himself as a world-class author. This approach also puts a human face on a man who has too often in the past been stereotyped simply as a socialist/communist who happened to write very good novels or as a man’s man who traveled to the wilds of Alaska and the South Seas in search of new topics for his books. The real Jack London, as it turns out was more motivated by finding a way to make a living with his mind rather than his back than by anything else. That he succeeded to such a degree is a tale resembling those stories that so enthralled London himself as a young reader in San Francisco.

The odds were heavily against Jack London, but he made it. James Haley tells how London did it in a very readable, and memorable, biography that is sure to please fans of literary biography.

Rated at: 5.0