Sea People is a revelatory summation of this vast area steeped in culture and tradition. Sea People was an ambitious undertaking to synthesize 300 years of inquiry into Polynesian origins. While much of the Polynesian puzzle is still a mystery (and may never be completely solved), Thompson’s book sheds light on a fascinating region. Christina Thompson layers the story of Polynesian expansion, itself a fascinating tale still half-shrouded in prehistory, with the story of European attempts to understand it. This deep curiosity shines through in the meticulous background and details she provides such as diary entries, maps, Polynesian chronologies, geological topographies and weather patterns. Thompson’s personal interest in the subject was piqued by her Maori husband and sons, who are direct descendants of Polynesians. Christina Thompsons Sea People is a South Sea tale to top them all - the exploration and settlement of the vast Pacific Ocean by stone-age Polynesians - and every word is true. However, the book gets too bogged down in the history of all the historians and their wrongheaded theories about Polynesia. The first European encounters are interesting and the very end, what we have learned from modern discoveries like genomes, is great. Thompson includes an intriguing cast of characters ranging from Captain James Cook and Tupaia, the Tahitian navigator he befriended, to modern explorers such as anthropologist Ben Finney and his Micronesian master navigator, Mau Piailug, who together sailed from Maui to Tahiti in 1976 in a traditional 60-foot canoe using only ancient navigation tools to prove it could be done. Thompson is a great writer and Sea People starts off with intriguing chapters. In Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia, Harvard Review editor Christina Thompson weaves together history, science, folklore and the islands’ ancient oral traditions, archeology and genealogy, creating a mesmerizing, page-turning account of Polynesia. Where did these people come from, when did they arrive, and how on earth did they manage to traverse the mighty Pacific and settle these remote locales? But much of their lore still remains a mystery. The isolated islands of the Polynesian Triangle have been a source of fascination since European explorers first sailed into their harbors in the 16th century and discovered thriving communities previously unknown to the rest of the world.

Sea people christina thompson