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| Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft | 
 enlarge | Author: Thor Heyerdahl
Publisher: Pocket
Category: Book
List Price: $5.99
Buy New: $0.01
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (58 reviews)
Sales Rank: 93973
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 4.1 x 1
ISBN: 0671726528
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.09164
EAN: 9780671726522
ASIN: 0671726528
Publication Date: May 1, 1990
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Wonderful December 24, 2005
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
An exciting book by a brave and gifted man, who, in the 1940s, sought to prove his theories that settlers of ancient Easter Island (the most isolated land on earth) might have come from South America. He did so by setting sail on a balsa raft from Peru and going thousands of miles into the Pacific, with a small crew of friends in a remarkable adventure. Heyerdahl was a genius to realize that ancient man need not have been hindered by oceans, which in fact could have acted more like conveyer belts than barriers. (I also recommend his books about the Ra expeditions in reed rafts from Africa to America.) The success of the Kon Tiki mission was a bold and evocative backing up of this general theory, though he also offers other kinds of fascinating evidence along the way. (By the way, I always grit my teeth when I hear modern scientists trying to discredit Heyerdahl by asserting that today's Easter Islanders are Polynesians who came from farther west, which isn't in doubt and wan't to Heyerdahl either. But they are not reading him closely - he suggested an *earlier* migration from South America, which was replaced by Polynesians later on. Perhaps Easter Island was settled twice.) Anyway, a good sea yarn and one of the world's rare radically eye-opening books.
A modern-day adventure story November 30, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Kon-Tiki is the story of some Scandinavians who sail across the Pacific in an Incan raft made of balsa, in order to lend credence to a cultural-diffussionist theory hypothesized by the author and leader of the "adventure," Thor Heyerdahl. (The theory is that Polynesia was colonized from the east, South America. The voyage across the Pacific was to prove that it was possible for ancient Peruvians to cross the ocean. However, the voyage does not prove Heyerdahl's theory.) The book goes into great detail describing the encounters of the crew onboard out on the open ocean including an encounter with a whale shark, a rare Gempylus, circling dolphins, flying fish so abundant that they fly onto the raft's deck whereupon they can be gathered for food, whales, and sharks. The men lived off the sea by fishing and trapping rain water, braving the elements in a 40-foot long raft for 101 days before finally shipwrecking upon a reef surrounding a small island.
The book is well written and an enjoyable, absorbing read.
Beautiful Amazing Entrancing October 18, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
If you feel really crummy, you are getting really desperate and you absolutely have to cheer up, this is the book for you! The author writes with a sublime un-self-conciousness (is that a word?) conveying the power, beauty, and adventure of the ocean and his amazing quest to prove an idea. The power and human spirit of this man is awesome. It feels something like Hucklebery Finn but this is reality.
All that the sea promises and more! April 26, 2005
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book has all of the allure and excitment of a pirate tale, Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Crusoe and its real to boot! I am totally buying this book as an addition to my library I'm building up for my children. I think the author's passion for the sea, adventure, history and the Polynesian people are inspiring. This book will make you want to see Peru and the Polynesian Islands, and if like me, you've been there already, you'll want to go back with the book in hand. The only slow point in the writing is in the beginning when the trip is just being put together but once the journey is under way Heyerdahl comes into his own and you are engulfed by the exciting world of the sea, the last great frontier!
The Great Adventure January 27, 2005
17 out of 19 found this review helpful
"Kon Tiki" is one of the great adventure stories of all time. In 1947, six young Norwegians floated in a balsa-wood raft from Peru to the Polynesian islands of the South Seas. The trip took them 101 days and they traveled 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific without seeing a single other boat or ship. Only occasionally were they able to communicate with the outside world by radio, and the possibility of rescue should their primitive raft sink or break up in the heavy seas they often experienced was slim to none.
The journey was inspired by the theories of Thor Heyerdahl who speculated that the ancient civilizations of Peru had floated across the Pacific to reach the Polynesian islands. Scoffed at by scientists, Heyerdahl organized the expedition to prove that a raft crossing of the Pacific was possible. It was a foolhardy stunt -- but makes for a great story.
"Kon Tiki" tells the story of the expedition from beginning to the end when the crew of the raft is marooned on an idyllic paradise isle in the South Pacific. Rereading the book after many years, I was most impressed with how isolated and empty the Pacific Ocean was and how unexploited was its sea life in 1947. I fear that such is no longer the case.
Heyerdahl's theories of oceanic migrations from the Americas to Polynesia are still pooh-baahed by archaeologists today, although it seems that the sweet potato by some means made it from Peru to Polynesia in pre-historic times. Whatever your opinion may be regarding Heyerdahl as a scientist the story of the "Kon Tiki" is unique and original. Read it and weep because the opportunity for an adventure of such scope and daring is no longer possible in our over-crowded world.
Smallchief
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