Pacific Gibraltar; U.S.-Japanese Rivalry Over the Annexation of Hawaii, 1885-1898

Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2011. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. x, [2], 330, [8] pages. Includes Acknowledgments; Introduction; Conclusion: Local Power, Eclectic Imperialism, Enhanced Security; Notes; Selected Bibliography; and Index. Topics covered include Hawaii on the Cusp of Revolution; Pearl Harbor and Reciprocity; The Empire of Cane; The Beginnings of Japanese Immigration; The Fragmentation of Hawaiian Politics; The Revolution Begins; The Landing of U.S. Troops; The Rise and Fall of the Annexation Treaty; The Restoration Fiasco; Cleveland's Informal Protectorate; Mahan, the New Navy, and Hawaii's Strategic Value; The Republican Party Embraces Annexation; Japanese Immigration: From Lifeline to Threat; The U.S.-- Japan Crisis of 1897; Annexation Consummated: The Spanish-American War and Hawaii. This is on of the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Book. The author was a professor of strategic studies and director of the Regional Studies Program at the Marine Corps War College in Quantico, Virginia. After service in the Marine Corps, he earned a Ph.D. in history from the Claremont Graduate University. He had a thirty-one years career with the U.S. Foreign Service that included overseas assignments in South Africa, Venezuela, and Hungary as well as three assignment in Japan. Based a sweeping reevaluation of new and existing sources in three countries, Pacific Gibraltar is the first detailed account in a generation of Hawaiian annexation, the initial episode of U.S. overseas imperialism. The book clarifies murky episodes in the story of annexation, such as U.S.S. Boston's mysterious return to Honolulu just in time to land troops during the Hawaiian Revolution, President Cleveland's failed attempt to restore Queen Lili'uokalani, and the growing threat to the white rebel government from burgeoning Japanese immigration. Though the U.S. annexed Hawai'i during the Spanish-American War of 1898, Hawaii was not a war spoil like the Philippines. Rather annexation was an old idea. It emerged not only from ideological and economic motives but above all from a quarter century of maturing appreciation for Hawaii's importance to defense of the west coast. When Tokyo's push to secure voting rights for its nationals scared the white oligarchy into restricting the inflow of Japanese, triggering a nasty dispute between the two countries in early 1897, the U.S. rushed to protect the strategic isles. When Japan deployed warships to Honolulu and formally opposed annexation, even before the McKinley administration endorsed it, the U.S. completed the first war plans against Japan and authorized the Navy to use force against Japanese landing parties. The Japan-U.S. crisis of 1897 put annexation on the front burner and created the votes that would pass a joint resolution of annexation the following year.