The award-winning author of The Brendan Voyage documents his thrilling Pacific journey in a sixty-foot bamboo raft to test a scholar's theory that Asian navigators were the first to discover North America.

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Severin has made a career of re-creating voyages and journeys of the famous and legendary and writing chronicles of his adventures (In Search of Genghis Khan, LJ 4/1/92). Here Severin becomes interested in the possibility of travel and cultural exchange across the Pacific prior to the European discovery of America. He recounts arguments of cultural specialists and puts forth the theory that bamboo rafts were the most likely craft used by Asian navigators of the time. The bulk of the book recounts the building of a raft in Vietnam, the gathering of a crew, and the attempt to reach California via the Kuroshio and the North Pacific currents. There is some good incidental information about Vietnam and the character of Severin's multinational crew. But there is mind-numbing detail of bad meals and dangerous weather situations, as well as the slow deterioration of the raft. Thorough, accurate, and intelligent, this work is not as exciting as the general public might desire.?William R. Smith, Johns Hopkins Univ. Lib., Baltimore
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Severin has undertaken previous adventures inspired by historical journeys of significance. His latest expedition was motivated in part by the findings of experts who believed it possible that a Chinese explorer crossed from Asia to America perhaps 2,000 years ago on a bamboo raft. In what Severin considered to be an archeological experiment, a replica raft was built in Vietnam and christened Hsu Fu, after the revered mariner. Severin and his crew of four then set sail from Hong Kong to Tokyo before embarking on a crossing of the North Pacific. This rousing account of the journey is vividly detailed, never dreary. Nearly 1,000 miles off the Mendocino coast, these persistent sailors finally had to abandon the ancient seafaring craft that up to that point had served them so well. Alice Joyce

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