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The extraordinary sixty-thousand-year history of how the Pacific islands were settled.
'Takes readers on a narrative odyssey'
Wall Street Journal, Books of the Year 'Highlights a dizzying burst of new research'
The Economist 'A refreshing addition to the canon of literature that contemplates Oceanic navigation'
Noelle Kahanu 'I would not be surprised if, after reading this masterpiece, many readers are compelled to take up voyaging themselves'
Science MagazineThousands of islands, inhabited by a multitude of different peoples, are scattered across the vastness of the Pacific. The first European explorers to visit Oceania, from the sixteenth century on, were astounded and perplexed to find populations thriving so many miles from the nearest continents. Who were these people and where did they come from?
In
Voyagers, the distinguished anthropologist Nicholas Thomas charts the course of the seaborne migrations that populated the islands between Asia and the Americas. Drawing on the latest research, including insights gained from linguistics, archaeology, and the re-enactment of voyages, Thomas provides a dazzling account of these long-distance migrations, the sea-going technologies that enabled them, and the societies that they left in their wake.
About the author
Nicholas Thomas first visited Polynesia in 1984 to undertake research in the Marquesas Islands. He has since travelled extensively in the Pacific, and written on Indigenous histories, empire and art; his books include Entangled Objects (1991), Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire (2012), which was awarded the Wolfson History Prize, Oceanic Art (2018), Gauguin and Polynesia (2024), and several collaborative books with artists including John Pule and Mark Adams.
Oceania, which Thomas co-curated with Peter Brunt for the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris in 2018–19, was acclaimed as a landmark exhibition. He has also written on contemporary art, museums, and heritage issues for the Financial Times, The Art Newspaper, Apollo, Artlink and Art Asia Pacific among other magazines and journals.
Since 2006, he has been Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Summary
The extraordinary sixty-thousand-year history of how the Pacific islands were settled.
Foreword
The extraordinary sixty-thousand-year history of how the Pacific islands were settled.
Additional text
Voyagers is a refreshing addition to the canon of literature that contemplates Oceanic navigation... At once global yet intimate, shaped by Thomas's own Pacific journeys, and filled with wonderful images, historical and contemporary, that pay homage to Oceania's profound relationship with the sea
