The Partly Cloudy Patriot

The Partly Cloudy Patriot
© 2003 Sarah Vowell
197 pages

          The Partly Cloudy Patriot sees cheeky Yank Sarah Vowell muse on history, politics, and American life in general through a series of essays written in 2001. Her familar mixture of absurd and melachoic humor is well on display; she's especially put out by the triumph of George W. Bush. Seperate essays hail the virtues of Clinton and Gore, the latter of whom she lionizes as a fellow nerd who should have run on his pocket-protector-abiding principles.  Every essay is a mixed bag; that piece on Clinton features her visiting the presidential shrines of Eisenhower, Nixon, LBJ, and Kennedy to study how each man's term in office was dealt with and presented for posterity, where she leaves with a grudging respect for Nixon and LBJ despite their deficiencies in office.  The meaning of American identity comes up a time or two; Vowell admits to being more American than she would like to believe,  embracing cowboy individualism even against the ideals of conforming, polite Canada which she otherwise admires. A more common subject is that of history, Vowell's reliable companion, filling her world with stories and creating meaning.  She takes her title from Thomas Paine's urging that the revolution is no time for seasonal soldiers and sunshine patriots; she is, for all her misgivings about  George Bush, the south, and heroes who don't live up to their hype, a devout American. 

Unfamiliar Fishes

Unfamiliar Fishes
© 2011 Sarah Vowell
238 pages

For those accustomed to Sarah Vowell's usual approach to history -- one offering contemporary political allusions and biting wit -- Unfamiliar Fishes will seem decidedly straightforward. Her introduction describing 1898 as a perhaps more pivotal year for the United States than 1776 prompted me to think Unfamiliar Fishes would be a platform to criticize current foreign policy, but it truly is a straight history of the American annexation of Hawaii, one which serves as an introduction to Hawaiian history to boot.

Although her narrative begins in 1820, with the arrival of American missionaries keen on saving heathens, Vowell weaves in plenty of background information, starting from the union of the islands under a warlord. From there, Hawaii transforms into a beaten state in barely a half-century, its government taken over by puritans and ruthless industrialists. This is not a straightforward tale of good and evil, however:  savage warlords who oppress women deserve the misery that Puritanism brought, and staggeringly many Hawaiians were culpable in their own slow annexation -- like naive marks attracted to the idea of profit, playing poker with far more devious and ambitious men. Hawaii's history is a half-century of being hustled.

Vowell ends with the annexation of Hawaii at the hands of McKinley and Roosevelt, and revisits her idea of the ideals of 1776 being less important to American history than the greed of 1898.  Her ending chapter, quoting Henry Cabot Lodge's defense of the takeover, is positively chilling, as Lodge dismisses entirely the notion that the United States is a country built on the consent of the governed and defends that with examples from history -- exulting in how the rich and powerful have subdued the less fortunate multitudes time and again.  Class warfare is not a bogeyman dreamed up by Karl Marx.  The book ends on a  sad note, despite Vowell's usual attempts at humor.

Recommended for those curious about the aloha state.

Related:
The Spanish-American War, Albert Marrin