The structure of Hawaii has many literary precedents, including Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1865-1869), Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons (1918), and John Galsworthy's The Forsythe Saga (1922). All are old-fashioned narratives which weave generations of fictional families through documented factual events. According to A. Grove Day, Michener believes his function as a writer is to "report the world, factually or imaginatively, but also emotionally and even poetically."

A writer who never forgets his origins as a history teacher, Michener's "classroom is the world."