Ignorance is the most forgivable of the vices. We live in a complicated and multifaceted world, and it is impossible to know even a fraction of it. For those of us who are continuously curious, it can sometimes provide the problem of wanting to know a little bit about everything, and finding it all fascinating.
I don’t think I ever stopped to think about much about Polynesia, or the people there in. Prior to reading this book, I had a vague notion that there was such a place, and that it existed in the Pacific Ocean somewhere. I didn’t know how interesting I would the topic would be, partially because I never found the European age of exploration all that fascinating. But it turns out, there really is something very interesting going on there. The islands that form Oceania are very distant, and the people who populated it did not have the kind of sea-faring vessels that Europeans were using to cross vast expanses of Ocean. So how did they get there, when did they get there, and how did humans come to conquer this part of the world?
It is a more complicated question than you think. The Pacific is a massive ocean to cross, and doing so even with the technology available at the age of exploration is a harrowing task. How did they get to all these various locations? Where did they come from? We not only get some answers to those questions, but we all see how European values and beliefs of humans in that period also changed.
If you have found any of the following interesting, give this book a whirl.
Failures in Polymathy 