Sea People

‘I loved this book. I found Sea People the most intelligent, empathic, engaging, wide-ranging, informative, and authoritative treatment of Polynesian mysteries that I have ever read. Christina Thompson’s gorgeous writing arises from a deep well of research and succeeds in conjuring a lost world’ Dava Sobel, author of Longitude and The Glass Universe

‘To those of the western hemisphere, the Pacific represents a vast unknown, almost beyond our imagining; for its Polynesian island peoples, this fluid, shifting place is home. Christina Thompson’s wonderfully researched and beautifully written narrative brings these two stories together, gloriously and excitingly. Filled with teeming grace and terrible power, her book is a vibrant and revealing new account of the watery part of our world’ Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan

‘A compelling story, beautifully told, the best exploration narrative I’ve read in years’ Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb

‘Fascinating and satisfying’ Simon Winchester, author of The Map that Changed the World

‘Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Polynesia, the Pacific, or the spread of humanity around the globe’ Jack Weatherford, author of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

‘Christina Thompson…is perhaps ideally placed to try to answer the question [of Polynesian origins] – and in Sea People, her fascinating and satisfying addition to an already considerable body of Polynesian literature, she succeeds admirably’ New York Times Book Review

‘Compelling… These pages will unleash the imagination [and] spark insight’ National Geographic

‘Superb… . An illuminating read for amateur sleuths and professional scholars alike’ Spectator

Christina Thompson is the editor of Harvard Review and the author of Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story, which was shortlisted for the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. A dual citizen of the US and Australia, she lives outside of Boston with her family.