Island at the Edge of the World

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Island at the Edge of the World, written and read by Mike Pitts.

'The true and fascinating story of Easter Island and its amazing statues' KEN FOLLETT

Where did they come from? How did they get there? Why did they carve the island’s colossal iconic statues – and how? What happened to the civilisation they created?

These are just a few of the questions about Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, that have puzzled generations.

Europeans first encountered the Islanders in the early eighteenth century, bringing back astonishing tales from one of the most remote inhabited places on Earth. They told fantastic stories of lost continents, cannibalism, giants and aliens. Thor Heyerdahl claimed that the island was discovered by pale-skinned sailors from South America, ignoring the rightful claims of the greatest explorers the world has ever known. Recently, the idea that Islanders cut down all the trees, causing mass starvation and social collapse, has been espoused by scientists, broadcasters and politicians. Now, in archaeologist Mike Pitts’s superb investigation, Island at the Edge of the World, he provides authoritative new insights into what really happened.

Using the latest scientific and archaeological research, plus a huge range of historical accounts, Pitts builds a fascinating new portrait of the Islanders’ story. In particular, Pitts revives the life work of Katherine Routledge, who spent sixteen months on the island in 1914-15, surviving revolution and war, assembling a priceless but largely ignored archive of excavations and interviews - and whose legacy reveals the rapacious interference that spawned generations of false histories. Many questions still remain, but this is the most compelling and comprehensive account yet published of the extraordinary story of Easter Island.

Critics Review

Mike Pitts has written the true and fascinating story of Easter Island and its amazing statues
Ken Follett
A thought-provoking mix of published past and current work, and rediscovered documents that together provides a usefully different perspective on Rapa Nui's iconic world heritage archaeology
Professor Sue Hamilton
Rapa Nui has a double history of early Polynesian life and later colonial devastation, both mythologised. Mike Pitts draws on deep research to provide a powerful corrective to such myths. Anyone looking for an intelligent, balanced and accessible account of Rapa Nui should read his book
Chris Gosden, author of THE HISTORY OF MAGIC
In this detailed, intelligent, humane work, Pitts has given us a salutary corrective to centuries of Western prejudice and fantasy
Literary Review
A gripping story which, in a small way, redeems the horror of the Victorian brutality ... [Pitts] is good at bringing alive human stories
Spectator
A bold and convincing revision of Rapa Nui's history ... A welcome contribution to Pacific Island history that holds relevance not just for Rapa Nui, but for other islands across this vast ocean
Kirkus
Revelatory ... He offers a far more pragmatic but still fascinating explanation [of Easter Island’s history] … What Pitts describes is wholly convincing
Mail on Sunday
This striking account… [is] a stunning unravelling of many layers of hidden history
Publishers Weekly

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