New Books in History Mike Pitts, "Island at the Edge of the World: The Forgotten History of Easter Island" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Mar 11, 2026
Mike Pitts, writer, broadcaster and archaeologist formerly a museum curator, revisits Rapa Nui’s history. He challenges the eco-collapse story and highlights European impacts. He uncovers Katherine Routledge’s neglected records and explores Polynesian navigation, farming innovations, and the meaning of the moai. The book reframes who gets to write the island’s past.
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Rapa Nui Is A Colonial Cautionary Case
- Rapa Nui's story is a potent case study of colonial intervention producing cultural erasure that later observers misattributed to indigenous failure.
- Reassessing Rapa Nui restores credit to Polynesian ingenuity in adapting a tiny, southern, climatically challenging island.
Ecocide Narrative Rooted In A Posttrauma Snapshot
- The dominant ecocide story (islanders destroyed their environment and society) is rooted in observations of a society already devastated by slave raids, disease, and emigration.
- Reframing blame shows European interventions were central to the collapse, not intrinsic Polynesian mismanagement.
Routledges Recorded Lost Oral Histories
- Catherine and Scoresby Routledge spent 16–17 months on Rapa Nui collecting interviews, wax recordings, photographs, and excavation notes that documented living memory of pre-1722 life.
- Their prolonged fieldwork included bonding with island leaders and recording oral histories that later largely went unpublished or hidden.
