Steve Thomas – författare

The classic account of traditional Micronesian navigation and “the last navigator,” Mau Piailug, who fought to preserve it. For thousands of years, the peoples of Oceania have sailed unerringly across the Pacific without compass or charts, guided only by natural signs—stars, waves, and the flight paths of birds. In search of this secret knowledge, a young sailor, Steve Thomas, travelled to the tiny island of Satawal in Micronesia, home to Mau Piailug, one of the few surviving paliuw, or navigators. In The Last Navigator, Thomas tells how he convinced Piailug to accept him as his student and teach him the closely guarded Talk of Navigation. It is a remarkable book, offering at once a clear and precise account of Micronesian way-finding and the moving story of one man trying to preserve his culture against the tide of modernity.Now, 40 years after his original journey to study under Mau Piailug, Thomas has worked with a new generation of researchers, including natives of Satawal, to prepare this revised edition of The Last Navigator. All Satawalese words are rendered in the now-accepted orthography, and the islanders, originally identified by pseudonyms, appear under their true names. And throughout, Thomas has added a generous selection of colour photographs from his time on Satawal. The result is a lasting tribute to the spirit of the Satawalese, and to the Talk of Navigation.

The classic account of traditional Micronesian navigation and “the last navigator,” Mau Piailug, who fought to preserve it.For thousands of years, the peoples of Oceania have sailed unerringly across the Pacific without compass or charts, guided only by natural signs—stars, waves, and the flight paths of birds. In search of this secret knowledge, a young sailor, Steve Thomas, travelled to the tiny island of Satawal in Micronesia, home to Mau Piailug, one of the few surviving paliuw, or navigators. In The Last Navigator, Thomas tells how he convinced Piailug to accept him as his student and teach him the closely guarded Talk of Navigation. It is a remarkable book, offering at once a clear and precise account of Micronesian way-finding and the moving story of one man trying to preserve his culture against the tide of modernity.Now, 40 years after his original journey to study under Mau Piailug, Thomas has worked with a new generation of researchers, including natives of Satawal, to prepare this revised edition of The Last Navigator. All Satawalese words are rendered in the now-accepted orthography, and the islanders, originally identified by pseudonyms, appear under their true names. And throughout, Thomas has added a generous selection of colour photographs from his time on Satawal. The result is a lasting tribute to the spirit of the Satawalese, and to the Talk of Navigation.

In this Handbook, Steve Thomas and Padraic Fleming compile invaluable and original insights on the resilience of health systems in the face of shocks and crises, from economic and climate emergencies, to conflicts and pandemics. They examine how health system resilience has been conceptualised by scholars and applied in specific contexts, assessing different theoretical models for measuring and evaluating resilience, as well as highlighting the growing challenges facing health systems now and in the future.The Handbook of Health System Resilience presents cutting-edge research from an international range of experts on crisis decision-making throughout healthcare. Chapter authors analyse the value of using ‘resilience’ as a theoretical framework, before delving into the durability of health systems in a variety of global case studies, including economic crises across Europe, conflicts in the Middle East, pandemics across the globe, and the climate crisis. Ultimately, the Handbook emphasises the importance of dealing with poor decision-making and austerity, the need to protect vulnerable groups, and the significance of capacity-building to deal with future crises.This dynamic Handbook is a vital resource for students and scholars of public policy, health, and economics. It will also prove invaluable to health system analysts, as well as those within governments who are responsible for public health and crisis decision-making.