This volume is a detailed travel and historical account of the U.S. Pacific territories, the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines, published in 1916. Written from the perspective of an American official's wife, it provides a contemporary look at the islands' historical, political, and social conditions during a period of American governance. The text contrasts the "Americanized" nature of Hawaii, which the author notes is the commercial hub of the Pacific, with the Philippines, which represented a larger and more complex political challenge due to centuries of Spanish influence and the local population’s clamor for independence. The work includes extensive first-hand descriptions of local culture, from the myths of Hawaiian kings and the practice of surfing to encounters with the Igorot head-hunters and the Muslim Moros in the Philippines, documenting the rapidly changing Pacific landscape at the height of U.S. global expansion.
The spell of the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines