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Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

The Mystery and Miracle of Polynesia with Christina Thompson

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

NBCNews

News, Nbcnews, Why Is This Happening?, The Chris Hayes Podcast, Chris Hayes, Politics, Government, Society & Culture, Msnbc, Withpod

4.68.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Just a few weeks ago, Chris and his family visited the Big Island of Hawaii. While there, he was completely enthralled with learning more about how the first inhabitants got to such a remote place and surrounding areas. For more than a thousand years, Polynesians have called some of the most distant islands in the Pacific Ocean home. Where did they come from, how did they get there and how did a group of people conquer the largest ocean in the world a thousand years ago? It’s one of the greatest mysteries ever. Our guest this week, who has familial roots to the area, set out to understand more. Christina Thompson is editor of Harvard Review and author of “Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia.” She joins WITHpod to discuss what drew her to this story, what makes this mystery so complex, the impact of the arrival of European explorers, the limits of our understanding and more.

Transcript

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0:00.0

One of the things that inhibits European understanding of the sort of

0:10.8

amazingness of this diaspora is that for a very very very long time they

0:14.4

think there's a continent there somewhere. So for hundreds of years Europeans

0:18.1

traveling in the Pacific are looking for this unknown continent in the southern

0:22.0

hemisphere in the southern Pacific Basin basically

0:24.4

and that sort of explains to them where these people are going to come from I mean for some

0:28.3

of them anyway another thing they think there are other theories about where the

0:32.0

people might have come from, but basically

0:34.4

they're just starting to recognize what the geography of the ocean is, and then the fact that

0:40.5

it's these little tiny islands are all inhabited is a big, you know, eye-opener.

0:48.0

Hello and welcome to Why is this happening with me your host Chris Hayes.

0:54.0

You know, one of the great perks of my job and of my life a thing that I'm forever

1:04.3

eternally grateful for is that I get to learn a lot of stuff and when I get interested in

1:08.6

something I can just like find an expert in it and talk to them on this very program

1:12.1

and pursue my interest.

1:13.7

So today is one of those episodes and the story of this begins just a few weeks ago

1:18.3

when my family and I went over holiday break to the Big Island of Hawaii and we were there I had been once to

1:26.1

Oahu to Honolulu Waikiki Beach in the spring was my first time in Hawaii

1:30.2

but I was there for under sort of strange. I ended up getting sick and I was actually

1:34.7

working on a book. So I was kind of a writing retreat. I was there because Kate had a gig

1:38.7

at the University of Hawaii Law School for her podcast strict scrutiny. I went out early to get some writing done and

1:43.9

then Trump got indicted that week by Halvin Bragg so I ended up having to do the

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