{"title":"Nigel Randell","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"white-headhunter-book-nigel-randell-9781841196015","title":"The White Headhunter","description":"Jack Renton's remains the only authenticated account of a mental and physical ordeal that has haunted the Western imagination for centuries. Escaping from his floating prison in an open whaleboat, he drifted for two thousand miles across the Pacific, only to be washed up on the shores of an island shunned by all 19th century mariners, Malatia in the Solomon Islands. There he was stripped of his clothes and possession by a tribe of head hunters and was forced to go native to survive. Initially a slave to their chief, Kabou, he eventually became the man's most trusted warrior and advisor, loved by him as my first-born son. Renton's own account, published after he was rescued, caused a sensation, though now we know that it airbrushes out most of the key events that brought about his transformation. There the adventure might have been laid to rest, but for one small detail - the Malatians are masters of the art of oral history, passing detailed stories down from generation to generation. Researching the Renton legend, Nigel Randell spent seven years talking to the Malatians and piecing together a very different account from Renton's sanitized version.  It is the story of a man who not only adopted their customs, terrible as some of them were, but who also transformed their island world. Renowned as a warrior, counsellor and innovator, Renton's hut and his weapons were long preserved as a shrine - still visited by the islanders a century after he had left. Judged by the values of Western society Renton had sold his soul by becoming a head-hunter, to his new-found friends and family, he was a hero.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49519502164241,"sku":"GOR002412665","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49566706893073,"sku":"GOR004402473","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49661451895057,"sku":"GOR002969891","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51458474836241,"sku":"GOR010811193","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1841196010.jpg?v=1751122227"},{"product_id":"white-headhunter-book-nigel-randell-9780786714599","title":"The White Headhunter","description":"In 1868, Jack Renton, a teenage Scots sailor, was shanghaied in San Francisco.  In 1876, he was rescued from captivity on the Pacific island of Malaita, home to a fearsome tribe of headhunters.  After the rescue, in a sensational best-selling memoir, Renton recounted his eight-year adventure: how he jumped ship and drifted two thousand miles in an open whaleboat to the Solomon Islands, came ashore at Malaita, was stripped of his clothes, possessions and his very identity, but lived to serve the island's tribal chief Kabou eventually as his most trusted adviser.  For all the authenticity and riveting detail, however, it turns out that Renton's chronicle glossed over key events that made him the man that Kabou said he loved, \"as my first-born son. \" Mining the oral history passed down in detail from generations of Malaitans, documentary filmmaker Nigel Randell spent seven years piecing together a more complete and grislier account of Renton's experienceas a man forced to assimilate in order to survive. While The White Headhunter is the story of a man transformed by an island, it is also the story of a man who transformed the island as he prepared it for the onslaught of Western civilization.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50300327952657,"sku":"CIN078671459XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50307038282001,"sku":"CIN078671459XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/078671459X.jpg?v=1750786256"},{"product_id":"white-headhunter-book-nigel-randell-9780786712564","title":"The White Headhunter","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50800598647057,"sku":"GOR012448440","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51329198883089,"sku":"CIN0786712562VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52519728611601,"sku":"CIN0786712562G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0786712562.jpg?v=1750702967"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-nigel-randell.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}