Contributor: Carol A. MacLennan Carol A. MacLennan is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Michigan Technological University who researches policy and industry in the United States. She has published on Hawai‘i’s sugar industry and North American mining.

The importance of sugar in Hawai‘i's pre-statehood economy is a well-known story. ... But anthropologist MacLennan demonstrates that the success of industrial agriculture with its sugar plantations was not as inevitable as many believe. In a sophisticated and nuanced study, she demonstrates that there is a complicated and larger environmental history as to how the sugar industry came to dominate and transform the human and natural landscape of Hawai‘i. Highly recommended. --- Environmental historians will find plenty of material of interest in this book. . . . MacLennan has produced a well-written and easilyreadable account of the historical development of the Hawaiian sugar industry and how ‘Hawaiʻi today mirrors a landscape of sugar’s touch, but without the sugar.' --- This is a well-researched and highly readable book on the history of sugar industry development in Hawai‘i and its impacts. . . . Much of the political, economic, and social history of sugar in Hawai‘i is well known, but MacLennan enriches the story with more detail and interesting mini-stories. . . . Her research on the impact of sugar on the natural environment [is] particularly interesting. --- MacLennan does a great job detailing the diverse, and not always inevitable development of the seemingly dominant sugar industry in Hawai‘i, especially from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1910s. . . . [She] describes the transition in public land policy and environmental management from the goals of the Hawaiian monarchy (agriculture for international recognition as an equal independent nation) to the motivations of a U.S. territory (supporting the profitability of the sugar industry) . . . provid[ing] much detail on the development of the sugar industry for anyone with a desire for a comprehensive reference on this history. --- MacLennan focuses her research on the period of immense social change that began in the 1840s but does not ignore the social and political preconditions that may have facilitated epochal events. . . . [Her] meticulous documentation of how and why the planters achieved their immense status, including the monarchs’ mounting financial indebtedness, presents a powerful study of the inner workings of capitalism and the relentless and ruthless path to profits. Thus she argues that while the heritage of Hawai‘i’s sugar industry is obvious in the alteration of indigenous landscape ecologies, because of impacts on society and culture the full extent of the industry’s legacy may yet be revealed.