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This is CBS I On The World. Here's John Batchler.

I welcome a great privilege, Professor Nicholas Thomas, Professor of Historical Anthropology

at the University of Cambridge, Director of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

to help me with his new book, Wonderful Story about the Pacific Rim Basin, where I've

been several times in my life, ignorant of the questions I didn't know existed about

where this wonderful culture came from that I visited and who I, where it's going now

in the 21st century, given its history. The new book is Voyagers, the settlement of

the Pacific. Professor, a very good evening to you. Thank you very much. Congratulations.

And I take you to a moment in your explication of the vastness of this landscape called

Oceania. This is, I believe, 1821. A missionary, John Williams, is a deploying Christianity throughout

the islands, the cook group, if I read correctly. And at one point, he comes across a chief,

Rongo Montani, who offers to demonstrate to him how to sail to the next point where

he wants to go. And herein lies the secret of the vast voyages across the Oceania. What

do we need to know about what Rongo Montani told John Williams that he recorded so

dutifully in the early 19th century? Good evening, Professor.

Good evening, and it's a pleasure to talk to you. And John Williams himself was actually

...