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Christina Thompson

Goodreads Author

Born

in Lausanne, Switzerland

Website

http://www.christinathompson.net

Twitter

cathompsn

Genre

History, Memoir, Nonfiction

Member Since

February 2008

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/christina_thompson

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Christina Thompson writes about the history of the Pacific. Her first book, Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All, was at once a history contact in Aotearoa/New Zealand and a memoir of her marriage to a Maori man. Her second book, Sea People, is a history of the settlement of remote Oceania by the ancestors of the Polynesian people. It won the 2020 Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award, the 2020 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, and the 2019 NSW Premier’s General History Award, and was a finalist for the Phi Beta Kappa Ralph Waldo Emerson Award (US), the Mountbatten Maritime Award (UK), the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award, (US) and the Queensland Literary Award (AUS). A dual citizen of the US and Australia, she is the e ...more

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Christina Thompson’s books

Average rating: 4.12 · 8,824 ratings · 1,315 reviews · 50 distinct works • Similar authors

	Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia 4.24 avg rating — 7,150 ratings — published 2019 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story 3.59 avg rating — 1,661 ratings — published 2008 — 17 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harvard Review 57 4.67 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harvard Review (Number 56) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harvard Review No. 48 (Spring 2016) 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Harvard Review 45 really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2014	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harvard Review Number 50 3.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harvard Review No. 44 liked it 3.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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	Harvard Review #40 (Spring 2011) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Author Interview

Publisher's Weekly's pre-release interview for SEA PEOPLE (out March 12, 2019):
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...

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Published on November 19, 2018 06:49 • Tags: pacific-history, polynesia, pw, sea-people

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The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture

by Ruth Benedict

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Thunder from the sea

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The Chrysanthemum and the Sword by Ruth Benedict

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture
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Quotes by Christina Thompson (?)

“In some traditions, Te Pō is associated with Te Kore, a word that in common speech expresses simple negation but here is elevated to mean something like “Nothingness” or “the Void.” Like Te Pō, Te Kore can be qualified—Kore-nui (the Vast Void); Kore-roa (the Far-Extending Void); Kore-para (the Parched Void); Kore-rawea (the Void in Which Nothing Is Felt)—suggesting that it is less a matter of true absence or emptiness and more a kind of liminal space between being and nonbeing—a “realm of potential being,”
― Christina Thompson, Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia

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“All the islands inside this triangle were originally settled by a clearly identifiable group of voyagers: a people with a single language and set of customs, a particular body of myths, a distinctive arsenal of tools and skills, and a “portmanteau biota” of plants and animals that they carried with them wherever they went. They had no knowledge of writing or metal tools—no maps or compasses—and yet they succeeded in colonizing the largest ocean on the planet, occupying every habitable rock between New Guinea and the Galápagos, and establishing what was, until the modern era, the largest single culture area in the world.”
― Christina Thompson, Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia

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“Two possible reasons for this might be that, like politics, all navigation is local, and that what is true in one geographical region is not necessarily true in another. The night sky in New Zealand is not the same as the night sky in Papua New Guinea, which is not the same as the night sky in Hawai‘i. The winds and currents in the Solomons are not the same as those around Rapa Nui or in the Marquesas. A second consideration might be that in many Oceanic societies, navigational knowledge is believed to have been privileged and known to only a few, which may mean that it was especially easy to lose once it was no longer central to a society’s survival.”
― Christina Thompson, Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia

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Polls

What should our July non-fiction read be?

Voting will close on 15 May. You can change your vote at any time prior to the poll closing.

Please note that a voting for a book implies an intent to read and take part in discussion

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

4 votes, 33.3%

Wilding by Isabella Tree

3 votes, 25.0%

Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen by Mary Norris

2 votes, 16.7%

The Riviera Set: Glitz, Glamour, and the Hidden World of High Society by Mary S. Lovell

1 vote, 8.3%

A Well-Read Woman: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of Ruth Rappaport by Kate Stewart

1 vote, 8.3%

Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson

1 vote, 8.3%

12 total votes

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