
A little over a century ago, bubonic plague--the same Black Death that decimated medieval Europe--arrived on the shores of Hawaii just as the islands were about to become a U.S. territory. In this absorbing narrative, James Mohr tells the story of that fearful visitation and its fiery climax--a vast conflagration that engulfed Honolulu's Chinatown. Mohr tells this gripping tale largely through the eyes of the people caught up in the disaster, from members of the white elite to Chinese doctors, Japanese businessmen, and Hawaiian reporters. At the heart of the narrative are three American physicians--the Honolulu Board of Health--who became virtual dictators when the government granted them absolute control over the armed forces and the treasury. The doctors soon quarantined Chinatown, where the plague was killing one or two people a day and clearly spreading. They resisted intense pressure from the white community to burn down all of Chinatown at once and instead ordered a careful, controlled burning of buildings where plague victims had died. But a freak wind whipped one of those small fires into a roaring inferno that destroyed everything in its path, consuming roughly thirty-eight acres of densely packed wooden structures in a single afternoon. Some 5000 people lost their homes and all their possessions and were marched in shock to detention camps, where they were confined under armed guard for weeks. Next to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Chinatown fire is the worst civic disaster in Hawaiian history. A dramatic account of people struggling in the face of mounting catastrophe, Plague and Fire is a stimulating and thought-provoking read.
This work investigates the intersection of public health crisis and political instability during the 1900 bubonic plague outbreak in Honolulu. James C. Mohr, a historian specializing in American social and medical history, utilizes primary source documentation to reconstruct the administrative decisions and social consequences of the quarantine. He argues that the convergence of colonial anxiety, medical uncertainty, and bureaucratic overreach transformed a manageable health emergency into a catastrophic civic disaster.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Historians and reviewers frequently cite this work for its meticulous use of archival records and its balanced portrayal of the competing interests involved in the crisis. Experts highlight the text as a significant contribution to the study of urban disaster management and the social history of the American Pacific.
Page Count:
248
Publication Date:
2004-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190289953
ISBN-13:
9780190289959
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