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Acknowledgments

I had the privilege of growing up near the beach in California. I learned to surf in Santa Monica, where I was born, and spent countless hours chasing waves up and down the coast. After high school I moved north, enjoying a couple of years in Santa Cruz before leaving for the Bay Area, where I spent much of my free time surfing at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. I now live about as far from the ocean as one can live in the United States. Yet I still regularly surf. As ridiculous as it may sound, my adopted hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, enjoys probably the best waves in the Midwest. It may be colder, less consistent, and smaller than California, but I still find the pleasure and solace in Lake Superior that I found in my younger years in the Pacific. Surfing, in other words, has been important to me for the better part of my life. As has history. I first consciously began to conceptualize Empire in Waves in 1993, when, as a university student, I spent the summer as an editorial intern at Orange County–based Surfer magazine. It was a tough commute from L.A., particularly when waiting tables at night, but what an experience. I worked with great people, joined the editors for periodic surf breaks, and claimed my first publication—a brief article on a Pearl Jam benefit for Aaron Ahearn, a young surfer and sailor in the U.S. Navy who was disciplined for going AWOL and blowing the whistle on the Navy’s practice of dumping garbage offshore. I was also, at that time, becoming increasingly active in human rights issues. I soon found myself presented with an intellectual conundrum. As an activist I knew a fair bit about Indonesia and its occupation of East Timor. As a surfer I knew a lot about Indonesia but nothing about the occupation of East Timor. Why? My attempt to answer that question represents the origins of this book.

Not many people have the opportunity to make a living by combining their personal and academic interests. I recognize my good fortune and the debt I owe to those many friends and colleagues who made it possible. I want to first thank John Hamlin, Eileen Zeitz, and the University Education Association for their seemingly inexhaustible energy and assistance in trying times. And I thank Sue Maher, dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, Duluth (UMD), for her moral and financial support. I am also indebted for research assistance to the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations; the Graduate School, the McKnight Arts and Humanities Endowment, and the Imagine Fund of the University of Minnesota; and the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at UMD.

Research for this project has required the use of sources that are not the typical fare of historians, and numerous people helped me locate and access them in recent years. I am grateful to Barry Haun, Becky Church, Dick Metz, and Tom Pezman at the Surfing Heritage Foundation (now the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center) in San Clemente, California; Gary Sahagen at the International Surfing Museum in Huntington Beach, California; and Craig Baird at Surf World in Torquay, Victoria, Australia. Craig was also a generous host during my stay in Torquay, having me over for dinner and taking me out for a much-needed surf. Al Hunt has perhaps the world’s largest collection of Surfing magazines, and he generously provided me with access to his extensive archive. Al and his wife Andrea also invited me into their home in New South Wales, where they introduced me to Paul Scott. I thank all three of them, as well as Craig, for the kindness they showed this traveling American.

Both Craig and Al assisted me as I collected the illustrations for this book. So, too, did Verity Chambers, Cori Schumacher, Maria Cerda, Peter Simons, Stu Nettle at Swellnet, Luke Kennedy at Tracks magazine, JeffDivine at the Surfer’s Journal, JeffHall at A-Frame Media, Sunshine Carter in the UMD Library, and Dustin Thompson in the UMD Visualization and Digital Imaging Lab. They have my deep appreciation.

I visited several archives in Hawai‘i. I am grateful for the assistance I received at the Bishop Museum from Charley Myers, Tia Reber, and Ju Sun Yi; at the Hawaii State Archives from Gina S. Vergara-Bautista and Luella Kurkjian; and at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa from Dore Minatodani, Jodie Mattos, and Sherman Seki. My friend Hoku Aikau was a wonderful host during my Hawaiian stay, as was Ed Coates, who lent me equipment and took me out for some small but fun waves near Waikiki. In California, Barbara Hall at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was, as always, tremendously helpful. So, too, was the Herrick Library’s desk staffand, up north, that of the Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley. At the National Archives II in College Park, Mary land, I was aided by Edward O. Barnes and David A. Pfeiffer. Cory Czajkowski helped me navigate the Pan Am papers at the University of Miami. Sue Hodson of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and Clint Pumphrey at Utah State University helped me from a long distance with their institutions’ Jack London materials. Kristi Rudelius-Palmer and Mary Rumsey made possible my research in the Human Rights Library of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. And Kay Westergren, the interlibrary loan specialist at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, ably and amiably fielded my many requests.

Numerous scholars read or heard pieces of this book as conference or seminar papers or draft chapters. I thank Chris Endy, Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu, Andy Johns, Paul Kramer, Dennis Merrill, Mark Rice, Brad Simpson, Mike Sunnafrank, and Glen Thompson for their insightful comments. Dion Georgiou and the participants in the Sport and Leisure History Seminar at the Institute for Historical Research in London provided excellent feedback and questions. So, too, did Diane Negra, Stephen Boyd, Jack Thompson, and several others at University College Dublin; Scott Lucas and Michele Aaron at the University of Birmingham; Kimberly Marsh and the participants in the Travel Cultures Seminar at the University of Oxford; and Tony Collins, Matthew Taylor, and their colleagues at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University. In 2012, I had the good fortune to spend three weeks in Japan as a representative of the Organization of American Historians. Danielle McGuire, Priscilla Wald, and Sachiyo Shindo provided helpful criticism of my work. Rumi Yasutake provided me with a rich exchange on Alexander Hume Ford. And Yuka Tsuchiya, Yujin Yaguchi, Nao Nomura, and Hiroaki Matsusaka—among too many others to name here—were gracious hosts and the source of hours of stimulating conversation.

I thank the surfers who allowed me to formally interview them: Tom Carroll, Tom Curren, Mike Hynson, Dick Metz, Martin Potter, and Shaun Tomson. Like the others mentioned in these acknowledgments, they may not agree with everything (or anything) in this book, but their willingness to meet and speak with me attests to their commitment to a fuller understanding of the pastime to which they have devoted their lives. The same goes for those many people who have patiently responded to my queries and humored and assisted me during my research. I thank, among others (including some already named), Doug Booth, Greg Borne, Brittany Bounds, Clift on Evers, David Theo Goldberg, Alex Leonard, Jess Ponting, and Isaiah Helekunihi Walker.

I worked with a dream team at the University of California Press. Niels Hooper and Kim Hogeland could not have been better editors. Kate Warne, Pamela Polk, Jamie Thaman, and Michael Bohrer-Clancy expertly guided the manuscript through production. In addition to an anonymous referee, I thank Mark Bradley, Susan Brownell, Chris Endy, and Chris Young for their wonderful feedback as readers. The same goes for the representative of the press’s faculty board. I am grateful to Chris Axelson for generously allowing me the gratis use of his photograph for the book’s cover. And Carol Roberts once more created my index. There is a reason I keep asking her.

Finally, my family. My siblings-in-law, Robert and Paul Torres and Molly Carter-Torres, were always quick to lend me a car, put me up, and give me equipment and head out for a surf during my stays in California. My parents-in-law, Ernie and Karen Torres and Bernadette Torhan, showed me innumerable kindnesses as I was conducting research and writing. My mother, Jackie Laderman; brothers, Mark and Greg Laderman; and sister, Mary Ann Corbett, continue to be a deep wellspring of love and support. John Hatcher and I may not be related, but we might as well be. His friendship and humor, both in and out of the water, have brought me immense joy when it is needed most. He is also an incisive critic. And what can I say about Jill Torres, my partner for over twenty years. Words cannot begin to express how much she means to me. For always being there, and for bringing me my greatest work—Izzy and Sam, whom I love more than anything and to whom I dedicate this book—I remain eternally grateful.