Annotated Bibliography

1. Edwards, Phil with Ottum, Bob. You Should Have Been Here an Hour Ago. 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.

This book opens with an introduction by Bob Ottum, in which he declares Phil Edwards to be “the best surfer in the world.” He describes how Edwards surfs for pure enjoyment, not to win championships. There is an undertone of contempt for the commercialization of the sport, the need to hold competitions and label someone the champion. Also, he distinguishes the ultimate goal of surfing as enjoyment of the individual, not necessarily finding the biggest, perfect wave. This sentiment is captured in the opening page of chapter 1. In the intro, the author claims that surfing will become an Olympic sport.

Waves can’t be the god of the sport; if they were, we would all live in Hawaii. It has go to be getting out in it that counts – surfing because you love to surf, and getting pumped full of life and whip and snap. I used to ride junk waves all day long, training for good moments. You do this, and one day you are sitting out there all alone, waiting, for a set, and someone will paddle up and ask how the surf is. “Man,” you tell them, “you should have been here an hour ago.”

Edwards’ First Law of Surfing

2. Fairmont, Gary and Filosa, R. The Surfer’s Almanac. 1st ed. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company, 1977.

This book claims to be the first almanac for surfers following in the historic line of almanacs produced by Ben Franklin and Benjamin Banneker. It includes a history of the sport, how-to-surf guide, and information about surf spots around the world. It appears that the main focus of the book is to provide information to support the adoption of surfing as an Olympic sport.

“In writing his book, Dr. Filosa has provided the international surfing community with vivid documentation for their sport’s entry into the Olympic arena.”

“The Surfer’s Almanac is a compendium of fact, past and present, a bible for surfing, a repository for surfing lore, and a dictionary for surfers about surfing.”

3. Finney, Ben R. and Houston, James D. Surfing: The Sport of Hawaiian Kings. 1st ed. Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1966.

This book is a history of surfing in Hawaii. The author developed the book from a Master thesis titled Hawaiian Surfing, A Study in Cultural Change. Using research from the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, this traces the origins of surfing in the Pacific to its modern status as an international sport.

4. Ford, Nick and Brown, David. Surfing and Social Theory: Experience, embodiment, and narrative of the dream glide. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, 2006.

This book involves interdisciplinary research into the field of Surf Science (a degree offered a the University of Plymouth and Corwall College in the UK). I think the book is an attempt to understand how the sport of surfing has affected the lives of surfers. It examines the literature of surfing to understand how it has affected people and the development of a surf culture.

5. Kahanamoku, Duke with Brennan, Joe. World of Surfing. 1st ed. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1968.

This book opens with an introduction and a forward that praise Duke as the father of surfing. It includes a history of the sport in Hawaii and a how-to-surf guide.

6. Klein, H. Arthur. Surfing. 1st ed. Philadelphia and New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1965.

“It seeks to be a practical, easily applicable guide to many kinds of surfing, each with its particular possibilities for sport, stimulus, satisfaction, and physical benefits … The book seeks to emphasize what seems likely to be lasting in surfing rather than that which may be temporary and faddish … it seeks to show that surfing offers something worth while to those men or women of every age who are able to swim and who enjoy physical activity.”

7. Kuhns, Grant W. On Surfing. 1st ed. Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1963.

This is a guide to surfing.

“It is the author’s intention that this book should not only furnish the general information through which the reader may become acquainted with a new and remarkable sport, but that it will help establish in the surfer the skill and knowledge through which he will gain the maximum satisfaction from the sport by making the wave more a servant than a master.”

8. Pearson, Kent. Surfing Subcultures of Australia and New Zealand. 1st ed. St. Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1979.

“This book is not about surfing but about the people who surf.” This is an examination of the cultures of “surf life savers” and “surf board riders.”

9. Nelson, William Desmond. Surfing: A Handbook. 1st ed. Philadelphia: Auerbach Publishers Inc., 1973.

“This book is an attempt to show surfing as it really is, in the early 1970s, complete with challenges, problems, and excitement.”

“A major propose of this book is to introduce a new surfer to surfing with a minimum of embarrassment and avoidable mistakes.”

10. Tabrah, Ruth. Hawaii. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1980.

Missionaries: 37 – 48, 50 – 51, 53, 66 – 68, 80

Chapter 4 – The Reign of Hiram Bingham
This chapter opens with a description of the passing of a ruler (Kamehameha) and the rise and defiance of a new ruler (Liholiho – Kamehameha II) who by the urging of Kamehameha’s wife Kaahumanu, broke the tradition of kapu. “It was a symbolic defiance ending the power of the old gods in Hawaii, and at Kaahumanu’s urging he sent messengers to every part of the kingdon, even to Kauai, proclaiming the end of all kapu.” P. 35 (The overthrow of idol worship)
“The end of kapu and the fading away of the old gods and their power did not affect the basic system of Hawaiian values.” P. 36

New “Aloha spirit” – welcoming newcomers
“This new dimension of aloha spirit, offered to strangers and exchanged between Hawaiians and resident foreigners, sped cultural transition, permeating island life in a way that had not had to be during the isolation of ka poe kahiko.” – 36

Hiram Bingham – 31 years old, native of Bennington, VT, graduate of Middlebury College and Andover Theological Seminary, married to Sybil Moseley of Hartford, CT

14 American missionaries – mostly young couples

Puritans from Boston?

Possible Source to find:
Stephen Reynolds Journal: November 27, 1823 to June 27, 1845
“Stephen Reynolds, an American who liked the Hawaiian lifestyle, complained in his diary that “missionaries are always the ruin of the whole world.””

William Richards – built a high school and taught the principles of democracy
William Farnham, American visitor to Hawaii in 1840. Commissioned to pursue a treaty between USA, Great Britain, France, and Hawaii.

Missionaries – continued to wear New England clothing even in the heat of Hawaii, brought plant seeds from Massachusetts, …

“It was the good fortune of the mission that when the kuhina nui was struck with a serious illness in 1823, Sybil Bingham nursed her to recovery. Kaahumanu’s whole personality became transformed by her belief that only Mrs. Bingham’s prayers had helped her become well. Immediately, Kaahumanu became a Christian and applied all her strength and vigor to seeing to it her people listened to the word of God. Hiram Bingham became her religious mentor and the one person on whom she depended for advice in every detail for direction of Hawaii’s government. Through her, in just three years, the missionary status shifted from discouraging failure to undreamed-of success.” P. 41

“Mission influence flooded Hawaiian life. Laws prohibited the kindling of fires on the Sabbath and the old sports of boxing and wrestling.” P.42

“Life was a grim business for most of these American missionaries who were appalled by the frankness and candor of the Hawaiians on subjects taboo to New England culture and by the spontaneity with which Hawaiians lived each present moment, usually with innate exuberance whether the challenge was that of a surfing wave, a game, a job to be done, sex, or the chance to learn to read, write, and cipher.” P. 44

(French) Catholic Missionaries –
French ship Comete – July 1827, “a Catholic mission of members of the Congregation of the Order of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Father Abraham Armand, Father Alexis Bachelot, Father Patrick Short, and Brothers Theodore Boissier, Melchior Bondu, and Leonore Portal.

“The Hawaiian commoner of the 1840s was the particular victim of missionary attitudes that communicated a not so subtle cultural inferiority – a message received by the alii as well. The mission schools in which Hawaiians became quickly literate, and the churches where they sought God’s love and grace taught them that the Hawaiian past, Hawaiian culture with all its music, literature, dance, knowledge, and celebration of life, was dark and evil, an ineradicable blot staining the Hawaiian soul, a burden to be weighed on Judgment Day.” P. 54


Silva, Noenoe K. Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.

Kaona – hidden meaning in Hawaiian poetry; concealed reference, as to a person, thing or place; and word with double meaning.