[In "American Indians in the Pacific"] Heyerdahl marshals exceedingly convincing visual evidence of pre-Columbian American Indian influences in the Pacific. In no other single book can there be found an equally rich collection of that data—scientific, cultural, historical—so necessary for the developement of a reasoned theory of the colonization of Polynesia. Without taking into account these facts and their interpretation—many of them published for the first time in this volume—no scholar can speak with accuracy on the problem. This book will be required reading for all students of American and Pacific culture, history, and pre-history.

Any scholar who necessarily deals with the findings in a dozen or more sciences will come under attack from the siege guns of specialization. The central question in evaluating an effort to synthesize broadly in any scholarly field is: has the factual evidence been handled with respect on its...