Seconded. I have two copies of this book, love it, and just lent one out last week. In exchange, I received Master and Commander, which is an awesome reminder of the bygone floridity of educated English. Currently also working through Mumford's Technics and Civilization (1934) in connection with a pan-cultural inquiry in to machine tool evolution stemming from workshop-based inspiration in my robotics lab.

The stick charts are generally not 'charts' in the normal English sense but rather more like memory palaces for not-to-scale directed graphs. I have a big interest in Pacific cultural artifacts as I started a collection some years ago and live amongst it. Nothing like a giant jungle-struck hardwood oar or a primitive giant balanced hafted axe to make buttering your croissant with illicit Iranian jam an enhanced pleasure at breakfast.