[The saga of "Kon-Tiki"] is a revelation of how exciting science can become when it inspires a man with the heart of Leif Ericsson and the merry story-telling gift of an Ernie Pyle….

[The six men on the raft came to learn that] whether it was 1947 A.D. or B.C. was of no significance. "We realized that life had been full for men before the technical age also—in fact, fuller and richer in many ways than the life of modern man."

Here is the heart of the powerful appeal of this book…. These are cultivated modern men, scientists, artists, technicians. They have a particular quality, which is that an idea can have such value to them that they are willing to stake their lives upon its validity….

[They] have this quality and they arm the reader with it as he goes along on the unpretentiously daring...