It's always tough to review a memoir (and that's really what this is - not a study of history or politics or anything), but it's extra tough when the person both has some extremely good points to make, but also comes from an extremely biased perspective. The 3 rating is mostly in terms of assessing this: does the book successfully achieve what it wants to, and are the arguments, discussions and examples well-founded and effective?

Lili'uokalani's goal in writing this book was to make an argument for Hawai'ian sovereignty in the immediate aftermath of her overthrow and American annexation. She's making both a personal and cultural/political/law-based argument in favor of sovereignty based on her personal life story and her knowledge of Hawai'i and its people. The personal side of her argument was not particularly effective for me, but (predictably) she makes excellent arguments from the cultural/political/law side of things.

Looking back from our modern perspective, and from the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist perspective that I share with many people here, her arguments for Hawai'ian sovereignty are pretty compelling and exactly what you'd imagine: native people must be included in the decision-making process around their form of government and should have the final say in it; the annexation was a blatant resource, power and money grab first by American capitalists and then the American government; Lili'uokalani's overthrow had no legal basis, wasn't supported by the people, and was an imperialist act.

Her breakdown of the legal issues surrounding her forced abdication, the statements she was made to sign and her attempts to have it reviewed by the Senate/president afterwards were pretty interesting, and she's able to discuss clearly and convincingly why there was no legitimacy to the annexation, even based on its own legal principles and declarations. Her strongest cultural point - that native Hawai'ians were entirely excluded from having a voice in the overthrow or having any involvement in establishing a new form of government - is also very compelling.

I was also really fascinated by the discussions about how the American/missionary political interests were able to weasel their way into power in the reigns before hers - the kings gave little concessions here and there in order to keep the agricultural profits coming in, and assuming that the US was their "greatest friend and ally". She is looking back with hindsight and is able to see where these small concessions emboldened the Americans and gave them openings to be exploited later.

Where her arguments really fall apart for me is her personal perspective: she's a die-hard monarchist - not surprising for a former queen - and gives us an extremely-rose colored view of monarchy in the Hawai'ian islands (which was only established over the whole territory about 40 years before her birth). She maintains that "under our own system in former days [monarchs, and previously, chieftans], there was always plenty for prince or for people... The chief...took proper care of their needs, and they in turn contributed to the support of his table." This is echoed when she visits an English estate later, and she says "their people lived under their lords and mistresses with loving submission and loyal devotion, understanding the duties of their station in life, and therewith content... The relation between master and retainer was one of love on both sides, of pure affection for a trusted and faithful vassal, of devotion and desire to please from the man to the master." She goes on to imagine all the hardships faced by the working class and peasants now that the landed aristocracy is so involved in capitalist interests that they can't take care of their retainers anymore. She never once acknowledges or addresses the many abuses that a system of landed aristocracy lends itself to, or the possibility that not every master/chief/monarch has their people's interests at heart rather than their own interests. She maintains that there has never been and likely never will be a system of government better than monarchy.

Examples like this make me distrust her assessment of how happy and content the Hawai'ian people were with the short-lived monarchy. Although she continually insists that she and her relatives were incredibly beloved by the people with a blind sort of admiration, I'm not sure I believe that - although I do believe that they would have preferred her rule to the American-imposed "Republic of Hawaii".

Additionally, although she rightfully criticizes American annexation as a capitalist project to control and profit off the Hawai'ian sugar cane operations, and a land grab in order to expand the plantations, she can't seem to apply this philosophy to the land formerly belonging to indigenous people in the mainland United States. As she takes a train across California and the middle of the country, "I thought what splendid sugar plantations might here be established, how easily and profitably rice might be grown... There was nothing lacking in this great, rich country save the people to settle upon it, and develop its wealth." Somehow she doesn't seem to realize that what she's looking at is exactly how people saw Hawai'i. I think she considers these parts of the US to be unquestionably owned by that country and therefore subject to whatever it wants to make of them, but doesn't connect that before those lands were annexed by the US, their status was just like Hawai'i's.

So, the weak parts of her arguments aside, I also have to note that probably a good 1/3 of this book, if not more, is just Lili'uokalani talking about her various social visits and travels - she had a nice picnic with friends here, this is the list of people who went to so-and-so's party, here's who she stayed with in Boston... It was honestly kind of mind numbing. The book as a whole is less "Hawaii's Story" than "Lili'uokalani's Story".

We get snippets of cultural interest, especially in terms of music and traditional fostering/adoption, but a reader really can't get a sense of Hawai'i's people, culture or long-term history through this book. You can't even truly get a good handle on the immediate political situation leading up to her queenship, as she doesn't really discuss the machinations of the "missionary party" and its allies until she starts detailing it much later on.

I do feel like I got a lot out of this book, but I wanted way more, and way less of her personal friends and her pleasure travels.