Summary Of Overthrow By Stephen Kinzer

The book Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer is a collection of stories describing different events in which the U.S. overthrew foreign and oppressive governments, or simply governments that were not beneficial for America. One of the stories he included was America’s annexation of Hawaii, a massive turning point in our country’s history. However, The way Kinzer writes and retells the story is slightly biased towards the side of the Hawaiians. This makes for a story that may change peoples perspectives on an important piece of history. The Majority of the accounts and sources he credits are Hawaiian, and the U.S. is not as well represented in his bibliography. However, despite this, this chapter is not overwhelmingly biased. Kinzer discusses things that show both sides of the story, and creates a decent summary of the events culminating in the Annexation of the “Sandwich Islands”. Kinzer’s exegesis is slightly Biased, but still …show more content…
You can see how this may have skewed his perspective, as Hawaiians most likely would not favor the taking over of their country. Though he did read a few American and independent sources, the overwhelming amount of Hawaiian ones most likely influenced him exponentially more than the American ones. This made the chapter as a who seem like it sided with Hawaii. Kinzer discusses how without the Americans, Hawaii would be less successful, but Hawaiians are angry that their country was taken forcefully and ripped from Queen Liliuokalani’s control. A New York Times article states that The Queen described the Americans as “Evil-Minded foreigners” trying to steal her throne. Kinzer agreed with the Queen in this statement. He also seemed to believe that the Americans should not have stolen her position. Even though there are so many biases on the side of the Hawaiians in this chapter, there are ones on the side of the Americans as