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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:
 great classic about crossing South Pacific on a raft December 6, 2004
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Although the theory this adventure was trying to prove (that the South Pacific Islands were populated by people from South America) has been disproved, it still DID prove that ancient natives were indeed capable of great sea voyages using simple boats. (Many experts said this was impossible.) I loved this book and was pulled in from the very first page. I love true stories of people who throw caution to the wind and have astonishing and unique adventures. Imagine sailing over 4,000 nautical miles on a raft. I learned a great deal about sea life as I read the book. I found myself going to the web to find more facts about the fish and other marine life. Also incorporated into the book is legend and lore about Polynesian culture and history. Including Easter Island. I spent 2 weeks on Easter Island, and have a special fascination with it. I enjoyed this book immensely!
Epic adventure engagingly told September 24, 2004
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Adventurer Thor Heyerdahl was not only a pioneer of exploration and experimentation, but he pioneered a genre of writing: survival in nature, particularly on the sea. Nobody does it better than Heyerdahl, who makes science and nature instantly relatable and intriguing...exciting and relevant. This is a classic story, vividly told, of the monumental task of building a raft, assembling a crew, and setting out for the great unknown in dangerous, shark-infested waters. Simply put, this is one of my favorite books of all time. Read it now, and thank me later.
 A foolish adventure, a remarkable accomplishment July 16, 2004
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Early in "Kon-Tiki," as Thor Heyerdahl and his compatriots are a assembling make-shift raft to float across the Pacific, a government official calls Heyerdahl to his office."Are your parents living?" the official asks. Yes, says Heyerdahl. "Your mother and father will be very grieved when they hear of your death," says the official. It was a reasonable assumption. What Heyerdahl and his five Norwegian friends were proposing was beyond audacious -- it was foolhardy, by any standard. Here were six young men, none with sailing experience, who were building their own Inca-style raft out of balsa logs and hemp ropes and planning to sail it across thousands of miles of ocean from Peru to the South Seas. Surely, they would die. Of course, they didn't. For over 100 days, the Kon-Tiki bobbed along like a cork in high and low seas making slow but steady progress before eventually landing the men on an island in French Polynesia. In doing so, Heyerdahl, an anthropologist, had made his case that it was possible that the South Sea islands had been populated by immigrants floating on rafts from South America. It was a remarkable accomplishment, and while it is a tale imperfectly told, "Kon-Tiki" is quite worth reading. This is a book where the events carry the writing. For the most part, Heyerdahl does an able job of presenting the story, but he curiously skips over some parts. For instance, he doesn't explain clearly why he allowed the voyage to begin by having the Kon-Tiki towed out of port and many miles out to sea. After all, wasn't the point of the expedition to show that the raft could make it all the way on its own? (There may have been a good reason -- perhaps to avoid shipping traffic -- but he doesn't say what it is.) Because the trip actually turned out to be easier than expected, the middle section becomes somewhat flat. The crew had plenty of fish to eat, and collected rain water to drink. They found ways to make the craft easy to steer. Also, while Heyerdahl is detailed in his descriptions of the fish they saw while crossing the ocean, he fails to illuminate the personalities of his five crewmates. Even by the end of the book, they remained indistiguishable in my mind. These are weaknesses, yes, but hardly fatal ones, and the overall boldness of this adventure is what carries this book. There are exciting moments -- when one of the men falls overboard and is nearly lost, and when the Kon-Tiki dramatically crashes into a reef at the end of its voyage. And the crew's short stay on an island inhabited by just 127 villagers is memorable for its idyllic picture of the South Seas lifestyle.
A Fascinating Book Loaded with Scientific Information February 13, 2004
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
In this classic, Heyerdahl constructs a raft to sail 4,300 nautical miles from Peru to the South Pacific Islands in order to prove his theory that the natives of Peru could have migrated to these islands thousands of years ago. This book contains a great deal of information of interest to scientists. These include the appearance of previously little-known fish, the scope of marine bioluminescense, the deployment of ocean currents, etc. It is interesting to note that the Polynesians realized that the Earth was round. A re-examination of the common belief that prescientific peoples invariably believed in a flat Earth is clearly warranted.
 Kon-Tiki or Con-Tiki? November 30, 2003
5 out of 10 found this review helpful
I enjoyed reading this book, so much so that I incorporated it into a research paper of mine pertaining to Tiki statues and their movement and evolution across Polynesia. Heyerdahl's exploits indeed do come across as completely fantastic, as if from an imaginged story. This is mainly because important misadventures were not included in his text, and only after interviewing island natives and a careful look at his discoveries and methods were such things discovered. I reccomend this book to anyone who wishes to read about the great adventures of a single man and his crew aboard a raft, I do not reccomend this work to be taken completely literally and as a scholarly report. If such a book appeals to you, by all means, read it and enjoy it, but I highly suggest doing your homework before accepting his journey as full truth.
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