In the Footsteps of Adam: A Memoir
by Thor Heyerdahl
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Thor Heyerdahl is one of the greatest explorers of our day. At the age of 84 he has chosen to take a journey through his memories. This is not a chronological autobiography but rather an epic exploration of the world and the amazing events that Heyerdahl has pioneered, participated in and observed. IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ADAM is an account of life where personal experiences of a dramatic and emotional nature - secret missions during the war and near-fatal accidents - are woven together with his show more views on religious fatih politics and ecology. It is a book that focuses on the author's own remarkable life, and also brings us back to the dawn of civilization and out into the future. Thor Heyerdahl has spent a long lifetime wandering in the footsteps of mankind. He invites the reader to participate in that journey by sharing generously the details of his private and public life, his accumulated wisdom, and his friendships with a wide range of influential world leaders such as Fidel Castro and Mikhail Gorbachev. show lessTags
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Thor Heyerdahl humble-bragging of his odyssey and the wisdom it should impart. A mixture of episodes and theories, some rather boring in the manner of a self-regarding talker and tale teller. He does try to draw things together with the occasional lofty speculation, some perspective on how ephemeral our current concerns are. More unifying is Heyerdahl’s ego. Forgivable in a memoir. Somehow his most celebrated exploit, the Kon-tiki voyage from Peru to Polynesia, isn’t fully recounted here (the Kon-tiki Museum in Oslo gives a better flavour of that), but other adventures are more dramatically conveyed: his wartime role as a commando in the far north of Norway, working with British and Russian allies, his research visits to the Marsh show more Arabs of pre-upheaval Iraq, with their biblical lifestyle and ancient technologies. show less
Now I might be exaggerating here, but maybe not ; take the entire population of Scandinavia living today, sum their collective life experiences, and you still wouldn't come near to the total of adventure and sheer exuberant passionate use of time in this one man, Thor Heyerdahl's, existence.
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57+ Works 8,327 Members
"This is an enthralling book," Hamilton Lasso wrote in The New Yorker of Kon-Tiki (1948), "and I don't think I can be very far off in calling it the most absorbing sea tale of our time." Heyerdahl, a Norwegian ethnologist, conceived the theory---not then accepted by other scientists---that Polynesia may have been originally settled by people who show more crossed the 4,100 miles of ocean from Peru in rafts made of balsa logs. Kon-Tiki is the story of how he and five others built the raft, as people of the Stone Age could build it, and traveled in it from Peru to a small island east of Tahiti---a "most fascinating description of intelligent courage." Heyerdahl believes that he has at last solved the problem of how natives raised the great statues on Easter Island and has written a most absorbing account of it in Aku-Aku (1958). He has adduced further corroboration of his theory from the findings in The Archaeology of Easter Island (1961). In the spring of 1969, Heyerdahl was engaged in a new experiment---planning to cross the Atlantic from Morocco to Yucatan in a 12-ton papyrus boat that he and others built themselves in the manner of the ancient Egyptians. In spite of general skepticism as to whether the boat, called the Ra, could make the journey without sinking when it became thoroughly water-soaked, Heyerdahl and six others set out in full confidence. They hoped to demonstrate that Egyptians might have made the journey in this manner 4,000 or 5,000 years ago and thus were the precursors of the Incas and Mayas. In July 1969, however, they were forced to abandon their attempt 600 miles short of their goal, near the Virgin Islands, after a series of storms had crippled the Ra. They left it drifting in the hope that it might reach Barbados on its own. Their second attempt, in Ra II, was successful. A subsequent journey in the reed-ship Tigris in 1977--78 was meant to show that such craft could maneuver against the wind and thus complete round-trip journeys through the ancient world via the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. Political conflicts in the region, however, led Heyerdahl and his crew to burn the Tigris in protest. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- In the footsteps of Adam
- People/Characters*
- Thor Heyerdahl
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Anthropology, Travel, Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 910.92 — History & geography Geography & travel modified standard subdivisions of Geography and travel Explorers & Travelers Geographers, travellers, explorers regardless of country of origin
- LCC
- G306 .H47 .A313 — Geography, Anthropology and Recreation Geography (General) History of discoveries, explorations, and travel
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 92
- Popularity
- 349,865
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.59)
- Languages
- 11 — Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Norwegian (Bokmål), Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 19
