The purposes of paradise : U.S. tourism and empire in Cuba and Hawaiʻi / Christine Skwiot.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Skwiot, Christine.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Imperialism--History.

Imperialism.

Tourism--Political aspects--Cuba--History--19th century.

Tourism.

Tourism--Political aspects--Cuba--History--20th century.

Tourism--Political aspects--Hawaii--History--19th century.

Tourism--Political aspects--Hawaii--History--20th century.

Cuba--Colonization.

Cuba.

Hawaii--Colonization.

Hawaii.

United States--Foreign relations--19th century.

United States.

United States--Foreign relations--20th century.

United States--Territorial expansion.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (292 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

For half a century, the United States has treated Cuba and Hawai'i as polar opposites: despised nation and beloved state. But for more than a century before the Cuban revolution and Hawaiian statehood of 1959, Cuba and Hawai'i figured as twin objects of U.S. imperial desire and as possessions whose tropical island locales might support all manner of fantasy fulfillment-cultural, financial, and geopolitical. Using travel and tourism as sites where the pleasures of imperialism met the politics of empire, Christine Skwiot untangles the histories of Cuba and Hawai'i as integral parts of the Union and keys to U.S. global power, as occupied territories with violent pasts, and as fantasy islands ripe with seduction and reward. Grounded in a wide array of primary materials that range from government sources and tourist industry records to promotional items and travel narratives, The Purposes of Paradise explores the ways travel and tourism shaped U.S. imperialism in Cuba and Hawai'i. More broadly, Skwiot's comparative approach underscores continuity, as well as change, in U.S. imperial thought and practice across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Comparing the relationships of Cuba and Hawai'i with the United States, Skwiot argues, offers a way to revisit assumptions about formal versus informal empire, territorial versus commercial imperialism, and direct versus indirect rule.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction

Chapter one. First Fruits of a Tropical Eden

Chapter two. Garden Republics or Plantation Regimes?

Chapter three. Royal Resorts for Tropical Tramps

Chapter four. Revolutions, Reformations, Restorations

Chapter five. Travels to Another Revolution and to Statehood

Conclusion

Notes

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780812222289

0812222288

9781283890434

1283890437

9780812200034

0812200039

OCLC:

794925531