Sea People is a wonderful book about how and when the Polynesians ended up in Polynesia.
Piecing together a vast number of elements including history, science, mysticism, folklore, archaeology and ancient genealogies, author Christina Thompson creates a mesmerizing account of the Polynesian puzzle.
The book combines narrative with facts in a very pleasant proportion, said a review published in goodreads.com.
“The really impressive facet of this book is the underlying theme of how western understanding of a foreign culture changes over time. The evolution of anthropological understanding as a study in ideas changing over time is fascinating,” it said.
The book “is essentially about the way centuries of well-intentioned Europeans have approached Polynesian culture as if it was a puzzle to be solved,” said another critic in goodreads.com.
Thompson “sympathizes deeply with her cast of curious outsiders; she is herself a Westerner married to a Maori,” the review added.
