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| David
E. Stannard, Professor |
David
E. Stannard received his B.A. degree from San Francisco State University
in 1971 and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1975. His teaching
and research interests include American social, cultural, and intellectual
history; theory and method in history and social science; the demographic
and environmental impacts of Western imperialism; comparative analyses
of genocide; and race, racism, and multicultural studies.
In
addition to teaching at the University of Hawai`i (where he has
received the Regents Medal for Excellence in Teaching) he has taught
at Yale and, as a visiting professor, at Stanford University and
the University of Colorado at Boulder. His books include The
Puritan Way of Death: A Study in Religion, Culture and Social Change
(Oxford), Shrinking History: On Freud and the Failure of Psychohistory
(Oxford), Before the Horror: The Population of Hawai`i on the
Eve of Western Contact (University of Hawai`i Press), American
Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (Oxford), and Honor
Killing: How the Infamous "Massie Affair" Transformed
Hawaii (Viking). He also has edited a book, Death in America
(University of Pennsylvania Press), and has published numerous articles
in The American Historical Review, American Quarterly,
The Journal of American Studies, and other scholarly journals
and anthologies, as well as in such general readership publications
as The Nation, The New Republic, Cultural Survival
Quarterly, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Publications
of his have been translated into French, Spanish, German, Italian,
Turkish, and Japanese.
Professor
Stannard has been awarded Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and American
Council of Learned Societies research fellowships and he has lectured
in Asia, Europe, and throughout the United States. The producer
and moderator of a local public affairs television show for many
years, he works with various environmental and political organizations
and is interviewed regularly for radio, television, and documentary
film projects. In 2005 he served as principal consultant and on-air
commentator for the PBS American Experience documentary, "The
Massie Affair." He has been elected twice to the Board of Directors
of the University of Hawai`i Professional Assembly (the UH faculty
union) and has chaired its collective bargaining committee.
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"A
riveting retelling of one of the great trials of the early
20th century....Powerfully told, deeply researched ...this
book is a page-turner." Chicago Sunday Tribune
"Masterfully
portrays the personalities involved and interweaves the tense
courtroom drama with absorbing analysis of how the Massie
case helped to transform race consciousness in paradise."
Booklist
"Deconstructs the racially charged spectacle...[and]
strips bare the racist oppression by a small white oligarchy
that ran most of plantation era Hawaii." San Francisco
Chronicle
"Suspenseful
[and] paced like the best paperback thriller...But more to
the point, this is important, nuanced history that sheds light
on the history of imperialism, race, criminology, and gender.
Completely captivating." Kirkus Reviews
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"A
devastating portrait of the death, disease, misery, and apocalyptic
destruction experienced by American Indians during the centuries
after 1492." Washington Post Book World
"A
stunning book of immense importance. . . . a splendid antidote
to those many books on American Indian policy that ignore
the realities of the subject." Journal of American
Ethnic History
"Vivid and relentless, combining a formidable array
of primary sources with meticulous analysis--a devastating
reassessment of the Conquest as nothing less than a holy war."
Kirkus Reviews
"The
product of massive reading in the important sources. . . .
Stannard’s convincing claim is that what happened was
the worst demographic disaster in the history of our species."
Boston Sunday Globe
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"Stannard
writes about death in ways that most of us would like to live–with
sensitivity, grace, and verve. . . . A powerful study of the
catastrophic destruction of the Hawaiian people . . . it will
compel the rewriting of island history." American
Ethnologist
"Stannard
advances a challenging and formidable argument . . . . painting
a grim picture of the havoc of European-introduced diseases.
. . . A rigorous and informative work." Pacific Historical
Review
"[In]
demographic prose remarkable for its clarity . . . Stannard
dissects each assumption [and] makes a convincing case. .
. . The intellectual satisfactions of following Stannard’s
argument are vivid and memorable." American Historical
Review
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"What
makes Stannard’s attack effective is that, instead of
simply raising objections, he cites study after study to buttress
his argument. . . . His calm, reasoned, argumentative style
is undeniably persuasive." New York Times Book Review
"Devastates
the pretensions of psychohistory and in the course of doing
that mounts an out and out attack on psychoanalysis as a theory
and a therapy. . . . Stannard’s achievement is to make
the whole enterprise appear irretrievably dubious." New
Republic
"An
enormously lively, well-written book. . . . Stannard marshals
his argument with verve. This admirable book is the product
of a civilized intelligence and is a pleasure to read."
Contemporary Psychology
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"Draws
with ease on a rich and complex literature [and] ably takes
the plot over the nineteenth century bridge from their world
to ours. . . . An engrossing book." New York Times
Book Review
"A
powerful and moving study of New England Puritanism"
London Times Literary Supplement
"An
extremely valuable work . . . . Uses theological beliefs skillfully
to interpret social practices and at the same time provide
a new historical perspective from which to interpret, and
change, the modern American way of death." Journal
for the Scientific Study of Religion
"Complex and insightful...An exemplary piece of cultural
sociology as well as a careful and enlightening historical
study." Contemporary Sociology
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"A
splendid collection...focusing on a past in which death was
accepted and fitted into a system of beliefs, to a present
in which death is either denied or left to the individual
to cope with in his or her own way....A fascinating and stimulating
book." History: the Journal of the Historical Association
"An
excellent book of readings....Careful and intelligent...vivid.
Sociology: Reviews of New Books
"Excellent....Provides
historical background for the contemporary cultural suppression
of death, the American obsession with the present...and the
psychic penalties accompanying the virtual disappearance of
mourning." Journal of Interdisciplinary History
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