American History Unbound: Asians and Pacific Islanders (Paperback)
A survey of U.S. history from its beginnings to the present, American History Unbound reveals our past through the lens of Asian American and Pacific Islander history. In so doing, it is a work of both history and anti-history, a narrative that fundamentally transforms and deepens our understanding of the United States. This text is accessible and filled with engaging stories and themes that draw attention to key theoretical and historical interpretations. Gary Y. Okihiro positions Asians and Pacific Islanders within a larger history of people of color in the United States and places the United States in the context of world history and oceanic worlds.
Gary Y. Okihiro is Professor of International and Public Affairs and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University. He is the author of ten books, including his latest two, Island World: A History of Hawai’i and the United States (2008) and Pineapple Culture: A History of the Tropical and Temperate Zones (2009), both from UC Press. He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Studies Association, received an honorary doctorate from the University of the Ryukyus, and is a past president of the Association for Asian American Studies.
"...American History Unbound offers extremely important approaches to rethinking the history of the United States, and takes its place in the recent trend of a globally aligned (US) historiography that questions the construct of, and attempts to break the concept of the 'American Nation.'"
— Robert Kramm-Masaoka
"[Okihiro] effectively introduces little-known groups and immigrants from the Pacific to the broader context of American ethnic history... a major contribution."
— Oregon Historical Quarterly
"Noteworthy are Okihiro’s attention to the relationship between racial discourse and the historical segregation of Asian and Pacific Islander migrant laborers; his detailed rendering of the history of Asians in the United States through the nineteenth century; and his attention to the ethnic and geographic diversity of the Asian American experience."
— Journal of World History
"With American History Unbound, Okihiro offers a compelling and paradigm-shifting account of Asian American and Pacific Islander history."
— Pacific Historical Review
— Robert Kramm-Masaoka
"[Okihiro] effectively introduces little-known groups and immigrants from the Pacific to the broader context of American ethnic history... a major contribution."
— Oregon Historical Quarterly
"Noteworthy are Okihiro’s attention to the relationship between racial discourse and the historical segregation of Asian and Pacific Islander migrant laborers; his detailed rendering of the history of Asians in the United States through the nineteenth century; and his attention to the ethnic and geographic diversity of the Asian American experience."
— Journal of World History
"With American History Unbound, Okihiro offers a compelling and paradigm-shifting account of Asian American and Pacific Islander history."
— Pacific Historical Review