Quests of the Dragon and Bird Clan (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: clove route, fairy descent, amrita kumbha, Southeast Asia, Prester John, Milky Ocean (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"Quests of the Dragon and Bird Clan" examines how the seafaring trading people known as the "Nusantao" from Insular Southeast Asia influenced world history. This is a "blook," a book based on a weblog (blog). The decision to publish the book came after requests to make the information in the blog available in an easier-to-read and more portable format. The advantage of the printed work is that the blog entries are arranged in easy-to-manage chronological order with out the need for the clicking through the blog archives. The glossary entries are also in alphabetical order for easy look-up, and a word index and table of contents further increase the readiblity of the blog/book. Important supplementary articles have also been included in the appendices. A must-read for those who think there is more to history than what we find in "mainstream" publications.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Lulu.com (October 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430308990
• ISBN-13: 978-1430308997
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,976,285 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning interpretation of history, January 9, 2007

By	R_Crusoe (California) - See all my reviews

For those who found books like Stephen Oppenheimer's Eden in the East as interesting and intriguing, or who favor the theories of Wilhelm Solheim and Carl Sauer on Southeast Asia and the Pacific, this book is for you!

Quests of the Dragon and Bird Clan explores the history of an ancient maritime trade thalassocracy founded by peoples called Nusantao. The latter seafaring people were mostly but not entirely of Malayo-Polynesian and Austronesian language. However, they interacted with other peoples included the Neolithic Yayoi who the author suggests used Nusantao trade routes in migrating to Japan.

Catastrophic events like sea flooding and volcanoes stimulated Nusantao exploration and migration further and further abroad. In the course of these wide-ranging travels, Manansala suggests that the maritime traders altered history in wide-ranging areas in ways never before explored.

For example, he claims that the legendary king Prester John of the Indies was an historical and not-so-legendary Nusantao king. Also he provides evidence that the Holy Grail, which most medieval texts claim came and returned to the Indies, was related to Nusantao spiritual culture.

Manansala shows how in the early medieval period, little known wares known as Rusun jars were traded at extravagant prices to merchants from Japan, Borneo and elsewhere as last remnants of a long-forgotten Eden, a paradise that the author suggests was identical with the one found in the Old Testament.

1.0 out of 5 stars assertions are not proof, November 5, 2009

By	N. P. Collins (London England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is one of the most annoying books I have ever read. First it is written without structure as a series of blogs that the author has posted on the internet. For the exorbitant price he might have orgainsed them so that there was an introduction, middle and conclusion. No such luck. He might have tried to present evidence rather than just bland assertions...nope! He might have put the story..if there is one...in some sort of chronological narrative instead of within the space of a sentence or so wandering around three millenia or so. Answers that remain totally unanswered are; what exactly were the prehistoric seafaring movements of the Ice Age? How did post Ice Age trade develop from those trade routes...if indeed they did? How was any of this related to the seeaborne migrations from southern China to the Philippines and on to present day Indonesia? This volume leaves it not only unanswered but unasked. Assertions that these were called Dragon clan, bird clan, fallen angel clan and so forth....er...evidence please??
If the possibility of a prehistoric movement from an Ice Age time south east asian land mass which could have existed when sea levels were considerably lower appeals to you, better read the Oppenheimer book Eden in the East. The evidence is frustratingly thin anyway but at least it is told with scholarship, reasoning, evidence and argument in a series of thematic chapters. No such luck with this lazy and overpriced offering.