Like all of Michener's works, Hawaii is grounded in thorough historical research. For this particular book, Michener and his Hawaiian consultant, Mrs. Clarence V. Taylor, read or reviewed over five hundred books covering Hawaii, New England, China, Japan, and the South Pacific.

In Hawaii, Michener introduces a novelistic structure that secures his status as a prominent American popular author. In the opening section, "From the Boundless Deep," Michener transforms the land of Hawaii into one of the most captivating characters in the book. He details the islands' formation, from their geological origins in volcanic eruptions to the arrival of birds and other life forms before the first human settlers arrived. This particular section was so compelling that Life magazine published it before the release of Hawaii.

Each subsequent section of the book chronicles the different groups that come to inhabit the islands. A unifying theme throughout these sections is the depiction of the arduous journey to Hawaii and each group's belief in maintaining racial purity by avoiding intermarriage with other races. The narrator of Hawaii, Hoxworth Hale, one of Hawaii's Golden Men, serves as Michener's rebuttal to that belief.

Michener's release of Hawaii was particularly timely, coming just three months after Hawaii achieved statehood. However, A. Grove Day mentions that Michener's interest in writing about the islands began much earlier, in 1944, when he was showing John Dos Passos around Manoa Valley. Five years later, amidst a longshoreman's strike that triggered an economic crisis in Hawaii, Michener resolved to write a novel examining the "social relations in this melting pot of the Pacific."

Similar to Tales of the South Pacific (1947), Hawaii addresses themes of racism, bigotry, exploitation, and particularly religious prejudice. Nonetheless, the novel's primary theme is embodied in the title of its final section, "The Golden Men." This "melting pot" of the Pacific has created a new kind of person whom Michener's narrator describes as "neither all white nor all brown nor all yellow, but somewhere in between" — a fusion of Polynesian, Caucasian, Chinese, and Japanese heritage, who is "wholly modern and American yet in tune with the ancient and the Oriental."

The structure of Hawaii draws from numerous literary predecessors, such as Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1865-1869), Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons (1918), and John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga (1922). These works are traditional narratives that interlace generations of fictional families with documented historical events. A. Grove Day notes that Michener sees his role as a writer to "report the world, factually or imaginatively, but also emotionally and even poetically." Having never forgotten his roots as a history teacher, Michener's "classroom is the world."

Since Michener focuses on historical fiction, all his historical works are interconnected. His thorough research, consistent tone, and recurring themes are evident throughout his writings. Michener is particularly interested in the settlement of frontiers and the cultures that develop from the characteristics of the initial settlers. For complementary reading, Michener's Alaska (1988) and Caribbean (1989) are excellent selections.

Due to its extensive length and numerous characters, Hawaii has proven challenging to adapt into a film. United Artists has produced two adaptations of the book: Hawaii in 1966 and The Hawaiians in 1970. The superior adaptation, Hawaii, focuses on the "From the Farm of Bitterness" section and features Julie Andrews, Max von Sydow, and Richard Harris. The Hawaiians, which covers the "From the Starving Village" segment, stars Charlton Heston and Geraldine Chaplin.