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.^[1]

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.

Major works

• 1968: Shoal of time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands, Macmillan, New York.
• 1970: The Hawaiians (with Robert Goodman and Ed Sheehan), Island Heritage, Norfolk Island.
• 1973: Holy Man: Father Damien of Molokai, Harper, New York.
• 1980: A Dream of Islands, Norton, New York.
• 1981: Angels of War: The People of Papua New Guinea and World War II (with Andrew Pike and Hank Nelson), Ronin Films. Canberra.
• 1982: Night of the Dolphins, Deakin University, Australia.
• 1984: Holy Man: Father Damien of Molokai^[2]
• 1985: Land and Power in Hawaii (with George Cooper), Benchmark Books, Honolulu.
• 1988: Hawaii: The Islands of Life, Nature Conservancy, Honolulu.
• 1989: Hawaii 1959-1989, Publishers Group Hawaii, Honolulu.
• 1994: Prisoners of The Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific, William Morrow, New York.
• 1998: Follow The Music (with Jac Holzman), FirstMedia, Santa Monica.
• 2000: Archipelago:The Islands of Indonesia (with Marty Fujita), University of California, Berkeley.
• 2002: Bite The Hand: A Play, El Leon, Berkeley.
• 2006: Honolulu: The First Century, Mutual Publishing, Honolulu.
• 2008: Honolulu Stories: Voices of the Town Through the Years (with Bennett Hymer), Mutual Pubiishing, Honolulu.
• 2009: Wayfinding Through the Storm: Speaking Truth to Power at Kamehameha Schools 1993-1999 (with Na Leo o Kamehameha), Watermark, Honolulu.
• 2014: The Boy From Boort: Remembering Hank Nelson (with Bill Gammage and Brij Lal), Australian National University Press, Canberra.