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Andersson, Axel
A Hero for the Atomic Age
Thor Heyerdahl and the Kon-Tiki Expedition
Year of Publication: 2010
Oxford, 2010. XII, 252 pp., num. ill.
ISBN 978-1-906165-31-4 hb.
(Hardcover)
Weight: 0.650 kg, 1.433 lbs
- Hardcover:
- SFR 45.00
- €* 40.10
- €** 41.30
- € 37.50
- £ 30.00
- US$ 48.95
- Hardcover
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** includes VAT - only valid for Austria
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Book synopsis
In English and many other languages the name 'Kon-Tiki' has become a byword for adventure and the exotic. The journey of the Kon-Tiki from Peru to Polynesia in 1947 became one of the founding myths of the postwar world. In the voyage of six Scandinavians and a parrot on a balsa raft across the Pacific Ocean the classic journey of discovery was re-invented for generations to come. Kon-Tiki spoke of heroism, masculinity, free-spirited rebellion against scientific dogmatism, and the promise of an attainable exotic world, while it updated these mythological staples to fit the times. After years of relentless media exploitation of the 101-day raft journey, Heyerdahl emerged as the protagonist in a legend that helped to create a new postwar West.
A Hero for the Atomic Age tells the story of how Heyerdahl organized an expedition to sail a balsa raft from Callao in Peru to the Tuamotu Islands in French Polynesia, and explains how he turned this physical crossing into an epic narrative that became imbued with a universal appeal. The book also addresses, for the first time, the problematic nature of Heyerdahl's theory that a white culture-bearing race had initiated all the world's great civilizations.
Contents
Contents: The Man and the Myth - Making the Kon-Tiki - From Raft to Brand - The Seamless Craft of Writing Legend - To Review a Classic - The Kon-Tiki Film and the Return to Realism - A Lone Hero of Adventurous Science - White Primitives and the Art of Being Exotic to Oneself - The New Postwar Sea and the Pacific Frontier.
About the author(s)/editor(s)
Axel Andersson is a young Swedish historian and writer who has been fascinated by Heyerdahl and the Kon-Tiki since childhood. After attending school in Norway and graduating from the University of Edinburgh he completed his doctoral studies at the European University Institute, Florence, where he investigated the origins of the Kon-Tiki expedition and its abiding importance for the popular imagination.
Reviews
«This wonderful, original book offers a major contribution to the politics of race and racism, to the history of the Cold War and to the emergent field of Atlantic Studies.» (Professor Paul Gilroy, London School of Economics and Political Science)
«I can only say that I found this to be one of the more enlightening accounts of the history of 20th century science and exploration, thoroughly grounded in solid archival research, and contextualized in terms of the larger foment of social and political currents of the time.» (Patrick V. Kirch, Fornvännen 107, 2012)