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The last state to join the union, Hawaii is the only one to have once been a royal kingdom. Discovered in the late eighteenth century, it was fought over by European powers wanting to take advantage of its position in the Pacific. The arrival of the first missionaries sparked the struggle between a native culture with its ancient gods, sexual libertinism, and rites of human sacrifice and the rigid values of the Calvinists. Captive Paradise is the story of King Kamehameha I, who unified the islands through terror; of Gilded Age tycoons like Claus Spreckels; of firebrand Lorrin Thurston, who was determined that Hawaii be ruled by whites; and of President McKinley, who presided over the eventual annexation of the islands.