University of Hawaii Press - History

History

The Press was established in 1947 at the initiative of University of Hawaiʻi President Gregg M. Sinclair. Its first publications included a reprint of The Hawaiian Kingdom by Ralph Kuykendall and Insects of Hawaii, by Elwood C. Zimmerman, both of which have become classics. Other enduring classics from its early years include the Hawaiian-English Dictionary, by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel Elbert, first published in 1957, last revised and enlarged in 1986, then reprinted 16 times; and Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands, by Gavan Daws, whose Press edition was first published in 1974 and reprinted 19 times.

In 1971, the University of Hawaiʻi Press combined operations with the East-West Center Press and renamed itself the University Press of Hawaiʻi, thus adding greater coverage of Asia to its previous strength in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific. In 1981, the East-West Center withdrew its subsidy, and the name reverted to University of Hawaiʻi Press, but the focus on Asia continued to grow, so that at least half its titles now focus on Asia, with the other half devoted to Hawaiʻi (30%) and the Pacific (20%).

UH Press output included journals from the very beginning. Most of the Press's inaugural budget appropriation was allocated to the journal Pacific Science, whose first issue appeared in 1947. However, Pacific Science did not bear the UH Press imprint until 1953, two years after Philosophy East and West made its debut from UH Press (Kamins & Potter 1998:234-240).

The number of journals gradually expanded over the next few decades, with the acquisition of Oceanic Linguistics (in vol. V) in 1966 and Asian Perspectives (in vol. XII) in 1969, and the founding of Korean Studies in 1977, Biography in 1978, Buddhist-Christian Studies in 1981, and Asian Theatre Journal in 1984, all initiated at the University of Hawaiʻi. Flush State budgets in the late 1980s and early 1990s permitted several further initiatives by other campus departments. The literary journal Mānoa and the "island affairs" journal The Contemporary Pacific made their debut in 1989, followed by the Journal of World History in 1990, and then China Review International in 1994, just before severe budget cutbacks eliminated all university subsidies to the Journals Department.

Journals production struggled along, with some editorial offices assuming more of the burden, until Press subsidies were partially restored in 1998 and the department was restaffed. All 12 journals made their debut in the Project MUSE database of journals in the humanities and social sciences in 2000-2001, but Pacific Science switched to the BioOne collection of natural science journals in 2008. The Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers began publishing with UH Press in 2000 (in vol. 62) and made its debut in Project MUSE in 2004. The Asia Society's Archives of Asian Art began publishing with UH Press in 2007 (in vol. 57).