Author(s): Christina Thompson

Biography

What happens when two utterly different cultures meet and then collide? Beginning with Abel Tasman's discovery of New Zealand in 1642 and Cook's circumnavigation in 1770, this compelling account explores many of the themes and episodes of New Zealand's early history, from the establishment of the first Christian mission, to the annexation of New Zealand by the British, to the beginnings of the Maori rebellion and the outbreak of the Maori Wars. But this book goes beyond New Zealand's history to the heart of a present-day mixed marriage in which these two cultural and historical strands are intertwined.It is at once a cross-cultural love story and a search for understanding about what happens when two cultures collide. Transporting us back and forth in time and around the world, from Australia to Hawaii to tribal New Zealand and finally to a house in New England that has ghosts of its own, "Come on Shore" brings to life a lush variety of characters and gorgeous settings. Christina Thompson seamlessly blends memoir, anthropology, romance, travelogue and history to reveal the ways in which the past is alive in all of us. First publishd 2008.