Gavan Daws

Gavan Daws is an American writer, historian and filmmaker residing in Honolulu, Hawaii. He writes about Hawaii, the Pacific, and Asia. He is a retired professor of history at University of Hawaii at Manoa.Daws is originally from Australia and got his B.A. in English and History from the University of Melbourne. He has a Ph.D. in Pacific History from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His best-known works are Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands, in print since 1968; Holy Man: Father Damien of Molokai, the biography of a nineteenth-century missionary priest to Hawaii who served leprosy sufferers, and who has recently been canonized; and Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific. Daws co-produced and co-directed Angels of War: The People of Papua New Guinea and World War II, which won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Documentary. His other work includes song lyrics and a stage play with music and choreography. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Humanities in Australia, and served as the Pacific member of the UNESCO Commission on the Scientific and Cultural History of Humankind.