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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
I didn't think it could get much more adventurous and unbelievable than [b:Kon-Tiki|790171|Kon-Tiki|Thor Heyerdahl|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348547584l/790171._SY75_.jpg|1127127], but it turns out it can. Thor Heyerdahl's second major voyage makes the first one look like a leisurely sail.
I might have some issues with some of the anthropology and language choices, but this was a fun adventure story with unexpected (but very welcome) messages regarding both environmentalism and peace and tolerance amongst humans. Besides, I am always here for a tale of experimental archaeology, and anyone who decides to sail across the Atlantic in a papyrus boat (twice!) certainly has my respect!
TL;DR adventure good, racism and weird historical theories bad.
I read Kon-Tiki a while back, because I love a travel adventure story. I discovered then that Heyerdahl's theories about white bearded men civilising South America (a millennia or more before the Spaniards arrived) and that they could be the ones who colonised Polynesia were... um... problematic. I bought The Ra Expeditions before I knew that. I have chosen still to read it because I was interested to see exactly how he would go about tying ancient Egypt into these racial theories about just who settled and civilised where, and also because I wondered whether his ability to tell a good adventure story was a one off. Please keep in mind that I am an over-educated middle class white lady with a lot of historical knowledge and a sufficient amount of knowledge about literary theory, narrative structure, and so on that a) I wasn't directly in the firing line of Heyerdahl's period-appropriate (?) racism, b) I was able to read this critically in terms of history and construction. I have the same reservations about this book as I did about Kon-Tiki: it is a genuinely exciting adventure story, because getting to the point of building a reed boat to carry seven men (!) across the Atlantic (!!) is incredible; it's also chock-full of problematic ideas about race and history. Personally, I found it fascinating to see what ideas existed in the 1950s about cultural dispersion etc, in the same way that reading about people laughing about plate tectonics or that there might be more to the universe than just our galaxy is fascinating. If you're not in a place to read around the racist stuff - or you're of Polynesian descent, or South American - then avoid this resolutely.
So the actual account of getting the boat ready - of finding places and people who still make reed boats, of getting everything together in one place (builders from Chad, reeds from elsewhere, and then setting up in the shadow of the Great Pyramids at Giza) is legit a fascinating story of who knows who, ambassadors helping out, meeting U Thant, and uh dodging border security at one point (not great). And as with Kon-Tiki, the story of life on board - the storms, the drama, learning how to actually sail the darn thing, the adventures of a baby monkey they were gifted (uh...) - it is all gripping stuff. I'm also impressed that in the mid-50s, they manage to have seven men from different parts of the world represented: from Chad, from Egypt, from northern Europe, southern Europe, South America, the USA, and a Russian. So that was impressive, although I do wonder whether they really did manage to be quite so idyllic in their political discussions. (Heyerdahl is open about there being occasional arguments about personal living space and so on, but is adamant that there were no religious or political arguments at all.)
What I would love to read is an expurgated version. I can't believe I'm saying that, but the bits where he's discussing "the diffusionist" view that somehow there was contact between Egypt and South America because all the points of cultural similarity are just too much to be coincidence, and that the (uh...) 'savages' who crossed the Bering Strait to the Americas couldn't possibly have come up with pyramids etc themselves... yeh, those bits are just too old, now, and too hard to read. The adventure is still worth reading, though! Someone else should do the work to give me "the good bits version".
I have the final Heyerdahl book to read, too, about the Tigris expedition, but I'm going to give myself a spacer before I read that.
I read Kon-Tiki a while back, because I love a travel adventure story. I discovered then that Heyerdahl's theories about white bearded men civilising South America (a millennia or more before the Spaniards arrived) and that they could be the ones who colonised Polynesia were... um... problematic. I bought The Ra Expeditions before I knew that. I have chosen still to read it because I was interested to see exactly how he would go about tying ancient Egypt into these racial theories about just who settled and civilised where, and also because I wondered whether his ability to tell a good adventure story was a one off. Please keep in mind that I am an over-educated middle class white lady with a lot of historical knowledge and a sufficient amount of knowledge about literary theory, narrative structure, and so on that a) I wasn't directly in the firing line of Heyerdahl's period-appropriate (?) racism, b) I was able to read this critically in terms of history and construction. I have the same reservations about this book as I did about Kon-Tiki: it is a genuinely exciting adventure story, because getting to the point of building a reed boat to carry seven men (!) across the Atlantic (!!) is incredible; it's also chock-full of problematic ideas about race and history. Personally, I found it fascinating to see what ideas existed in the 1950s about cultural dispersion etc, in the same way that reading about people laughing about plate tectonics or that there might be more to the universe than just our galaxy is fascinating. If you're not in a place to read around the racist stuff - or you're of Polynesian descent, or South American - then avoid this resolutely.
So the actual account of getting the boat ready - of finding places and people who still make reed boats, of getting everything together in one place (builders from Chad, reeds from elsewhere, and then setting up in the shadow of the Great Pyramids at Giza) is legit a fascinating story of who knows who, ambassadors helping out, meeting U Thant, and uh dodging border security at one point (not great). And as with Kon-Tiki, the story of life on board - the storms, the drama, learning how to actually sail the darn thing, the adventures of a baby monkey they were gifted (uh...) - it is all gripping stuff. I'm also impressed that in the mid-50s, they manage to have seven men from different parts of the world represented: from Chad, from Egypt, from northern Europe, southern Europe, South America, the USA, and a Russian. So that was impressive, although I do wonder whether they really did manage to be quite so idyllic in their political discussions. (Heyerdahl is open about there being occasional arguments about personal living space and so on, but is adamant that there were no religious or political arguments at all.)
What I would love to read is an expurgated version. I can't believe I'm saying that, but the bits where he's discussing "the diffusionist" view that somehow there was contact between Egypt and South America because all the points of cultural similarity are just too much to be coincidence, and that the (uh...) 'savages' who crossed the Bering Strait to the Americas couldn't possibly have come up with pyramids etc themselves... yeh, those bits are just too old, now, and too hard to read. The adventure is still worth reading, though! Someone else should do the work to give me "the good bits version".
I have the final Heyerdahl book to read, too, about the Tigris expedition, but I'm going to give myself a spacer before I read that.
adventurous
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
After reading Kon-Tiki, I was hungry for similar kinds of accounts, so when The Ra Expeditions came out, I snapped it up. I enjoyed it, but not quite as much as Kon-Tiki. The first hundred pages were considerably more dry, basically describing his research into reed boats. Somehow it wasn't as fascinating as the research he described in . Nonetheless, it held my attention, and satisfied (for a time) my itch to know more about the ancient world and travel. It also stoked the fire of my dreams about someday traveling the world, which (three decades later) I have done to some degree, though not in the adventure-like fashion of Thor Heyerdahl.
Still astounding that they all survived these crazy voyages!
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
"It was easy to find differences between man and man, but still easier to find the highest common denominator of mankind."
Years after taking to the Pacific on a balsa wood raft to prove South America could have made it out into the Pacific Islands, Thor has continued studying different human civilizations and has a new idea to test. Could ancient Egyptians have sailed out of the Mediterranean and into the gulf of Mexico on reed boats? The signs were all there, civilizations spread across the globe all worshipping the sun, all using reed boats for transportation, and then in the Americas legends of white men sailing out from the East long before Columbus. Thor spends the first third of the book discussing the similarities between the various culture of Egypt, Aztec/Maya/Inca and then those of Easter Island. We then travel around Africa viewing the remaining peoples who still build reed boats. From Lake Chad to Ethiopia he meets various cultures and sees first hand the reed boats in actions.
Soon he hires members from Chad to build a craft to test out his hypothesis first hand. He then gets a crew from 7 countries, including the US and USSR at the time, and they set sail for America starting from Morocco. Since they were using designs they gleaned from Egyptian hieroglyphics they didn't realize some of the flaws of their newly built boat. With their stern slowly sinking, both their rudders broken they were forced to drift with the tides. But on they went day after day and getting closer to America. It wasn't until they were caught in bad weather with less than 1000 miles to go to Barbados that they were forced off the Ra. But this didn't stop Thor. Just 10 months later he was out with a crew of 8 on a newly redesigned boat. With the lessons from the first outing they were able to keep their tail up and rudders going throughout the trip. This new design carried them 3270 miles in 57 days to the island of Barbados proving that it was possible at least for Egyptian boats to get to America well before most would expect.
Overall a fun adventure to follow with a look at various cultures throughout the book.
Years after taking to the Pacific on a balsa wood raft to prove South America could have made it out into the Pacific Islands, Thor has continued studying different human civilizations and has a new idea to test. Could ancient Egyptians have sailed out of the Mediterranean and into the gulf of Mexico on reed boats? The signs were all there, civilizations spread across the globe all worshipping the sun, all using reed boats for transportation, and then in the Americas legends of white men sailing out from the East long before Columbus. Thor spends the first third of the book discussing the similarities between the various culture of Egypt, Aztec/Maya/Inca and then those of Easter Island. We then travel around Africa viewing the remaining peoples who still build reed boats. From Lake Chad to Ethiopia he meets various cultures and sees first hand the reed boats in actions.
Soon he hires members from Chad to build a craft to test out his hypothesis first hand. He then gets a crew from 7 countries, including the US and USSR at the time, and they set sail for America starting from Morocco. Since they were using designs they gleaned from Egyptian hieroglyphics they didn't realize some of the flaws of their newly built boat. With their stern slowly sinking, both their rudders broken they were forced to drift with the tides. But on they went day after day and getting closer to America. It wasn't until they were caught in bad weather with less than 1000 miles to go to Barbados that they were forced off the Ra. But this didn't stop Thor. Just 10 months later he was out with a crew of 8 on a newly redesigned boat. With the lessons from the first outing they were able to keep their tail up and rudders going throughout the trip. This new design carried them 3270 miles in 57 days to the island of Barbados proving that it was possible at least for Egyptian boats to get to America well before most would expect.
Overall a fun adventure to follow with a look at various cultures throughout the book.
After reading Kon-Tiki, I was hungry for similar kinds of accounts, so when The Ra Expeditions came out, I snapped it up. I enjoyed it, but not quite as much as Kon-Tiki. The first hundred pages were considerably more dry, basically describing his research into reed boats. Somehow it wasn't as fascinating as the research he described in . Nonetheless, it held my attention, and satisfied (for a time) my itch to know more about the ancient world and travel. It also stoked the fire of my dreams about someday traveling the world, which (three decades later) I have done to some degree, though not in the adventure-like fashion of Thor Heyerdahl.