Island at the Edge of the World: The Forgotten History of Easter Island – A Provocative Archaeological Study of Colonial Legacy, Indigenous Reclamation, and the Collapse Myth

by Mike Pitts

“A crisp, confident, and convincing new account of the place and its chroniclers" — The New Yorker

“Revelatory…fascinating… wholly convincing” — Daily Mail (UK)

“Striking . . . a stunning unraveling of many layers of hidden history.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A vital and timely work of historical adventure and reclamation by British archeological scholar Mike Pitts—a book that rewrites the popular yet flawed history of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and uses newly unearthed findings and documents to challenge the long-standing historical assumptions about the manmade ecological disaster that caused the island’s collapse.

Rapa Nui, known to Western cultures as Easter Island for centuries, has long been a source of mystery. While the massive stone statues that populate the island’s landscape have loomed in the popular Western imagination since Europeans first set foot there in 1722, in recent years, the island has gained infamy as a cautionary tale of eco-destruction. The island’s history as it’s been written tells of Polynesians who carelessly farmed, plundered their natural resources, and battled each other, dooming their delicate ecosystem and becoming a warning to us all about the frailty of our natural world.

But what if that history is wrong?

In The Island at the Edge of the World, archeological writer and scholar Mike Pitts offers a direct challenge to the orthodoxy of Rapa Nui, bringing to light new research and documents that tell a dramatic and surprising story about what really led to the island’s downfall. Relying on the latest archaeological findings, he paints a vastly different portrait of what life was like on the island before the first Europeans arrived, investigating why a Polynesian people who succeeded for centuries throughout the South Pacific supposedly failed to thrive in Rapa Nui. Pitts also unearths the vital story of one of the first anthropologists to study Rapa Nui, an Oxford-trained iconoclast named Katherine Routledge, who was instrumental in collecting firsthand accounts from the Polynesians living on Rapa Nui in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But though Routledge’s impressive scholarship captured the oral traditions of what life had been like pre-1722, her work was widely dismissed because of her gender, her reliance on indigenous perspectives, and her conclusions which contradicted her historical peers.

A stunning work of revisionism, this book raises critical questions about who gets to write history and the stakes of ignoring that history’s true authors. Provocative and illuminating, The Island at the Edge of the World will change the way people think about Easter Island, its colonial legacy, and where the blame for its devastation truly lies.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Audiobook, Archaeology, Science, Ecology

368 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 27, 2026

About the author

Archeologist, who also writes as Michael W. Pitts.

Reviews

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The funny thing about books which are revisionist is that they need to straddle the line of tearing down previously established information without seeming like they have an axe to grind. I personally don't like it when someone is too antagonistic with their peers. Again, very much a personal preference so please keep that in mind as I review Island at the Edge of the World by Mike Pitts.

The book is a tale of three narratives. The first is Pitts telling the generally accepted history of Rapa Nui, otherwise known as Easter Island. This portion of the book is a bit too speedy and negative for my tastes. Not so much when Pitts is calling out murderous Europeans trampling all over the island inhabitants, but more so when the author has some off-handed and dismissive verbiage towards non-explorers. Again, I recognize this is a personal pet peeve, but it really took my out of the flow of the book when I felt a potshot is taken without significant attribution.

The second narrative is about Katherine Routledge and her exploration of Rapa Nui while an anthropologist there. This section is a bit better but feels rushed and Pitts talks her up so much that I expected more about her work and findings. There are some reasons for that which the author chronicles. However, I couldn't help but feel that this section either needed to be expanded or eliminated completely because there wasn't enough.

The final portion of the book is by far the strongest and contains almost none of my criticisms from the first two. Pitts digs into (pun intended!) the current archaeological science and what we can glean from it when looking into the history of Rapa Nui. Pitts cites exciting new discoveries and takes a much more positive tone. I couldn't help but thinking that the whole book should have been this.

Ultimately, there is still a lot to learn from this book. I'd tell any reader who doesn't share my frustrations to give this one a look if you find the subject interesting.

(This book was provided as an advance reader copy by NetGalley and Mariner Books.)

[Lilisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read an historical book set on Rapa Nui or Easter Island last year, so I was interested in checking out this nonfiction book to dig deeper into the theories around its history, people, and the mysterious statutes from an expert’s vantage point. The book is certainly a worthwhile read debunking contentions by others about the supposed self-implosion of the island’s population and the playing down of the potential destructive impacts of “outsiders” who plundered the island’s human resources. I found the section about the Routledges’ travel experiences in part because of the interactions with the locals, interviews, and what they (mostly Katherine) learned firsthand. It was unfortunate that her archives were virtually ignored. There was overlap information in various sections of the book that I felt could have been tightened, although I get it was how the book was structured. The last part of the book was way too detailed for me, but probably the most interesting for others more archeologically inclined (!) and my eyes glazed over a bit. So, while I cannot say this book was a riveting read for me, I can say that overall, it was a worthwhile read and helped me learn more about what could have happened to past generations of Rapa Nui or Easter Island populations. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

[Sarah Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first half of this book, reading about the Routledge's journeys around the world and all of the amazing discoveries that they made. Unfortunately, the second half of this book wasn't as engaging for me. I found myself having to do a lot of re-reading in order to ensure that I was intaking the information. It was very well researched, and well written, and I think that others who already have an interest in the topic would enjoy it and find it informative. It probably isn't the best book for someone who is at an entry-level understanding of the topic, like I was.

Thanks to Mariner Books and Netgalley for the ARC of this book!

[Miguel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unexplained

Like other reviewers having a hard time digesting this one as it started out with such promise on a highly intriguing topic, coupled with upending an oft-cited thesis of human induced resourced depletion, but failing to deliver in fully fleshing out these points. Let alone saying up front that the work of the Routledge would be given the summation it deserves, but only in the end providing a fairly anodyne synopsis of the island's history.

The resource depletion narrative seen anywhere from Diamond to Hariri taken as gospel by many does get upended here or at least comes into serious doubt reasonably enough. Perhaps that's the best take-away from the book.

But what about Routledge? How did a seemingly well educated, curious, diligent and smart woman of her age perform all of this important field work only to descend into madness later? Did it have anything to do with her expedition or time on the island? There are so many threads lightly pulled at in here that never get a full airing, even though the author says he will do so early in the book.

In any event, absorbing topic and even decently written but hopefully someone else can come along and write a better work that fully develops the theories and background the author attempts to make.

[Jean Bonilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

At only 63 sq. miles, Easter Island, known also as Rapa Nui, presents a surprising number of puzzles. The author, Mike Pitts, makes a good case for drawing on Katherine Routledge’s notes from her work on Rapa Nui to better understand the history and culture of the island and its people. He certainly used them to good effect. But he justifiably points out that much of her writing remains untapped. Unfortunately, only some of her material is readily available. The rest is in private collections or lost altogether. But even with that additional source, I think it would have been hard to sort out what really happened in Rapa Nui’s history. Pitts wisely refrained from casting blame. It would have been too easy! With so many players involved and so much history lost or forgotten, this outpost in the middle of nowhere will remain, I think, largely a mystery , in the absence of more discoveries - a point that Pitts freely acknowledges. He does encourage more efforts at research and the island’s designation in 1995 as a World Heritage site should help protect it while that work goes on.

The statues are world-famous, so I’m glad I read the book. My low grade results from reaction to a style that alternates between evocative descriptions of the landscape and plodding stories of - what?. He inserts references to the past, but doesn’t explain why. I almost gave up at some points! I would have benefited also from a better description of the geography. If Pitts mentioned the size of the island, I missed it! Both its size and the date of the UNESCO designation I found on Wikipedia.

[Maggie Timlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A completely different view of the world’s most remote island.

This is a fascinating story of two parts. The first part is the history of an interesting sounding woman called Katherine Routledge who visited Rapa Nui in the early years of the twentieth century. The second half is about how Rapa Nui has been viewed since then and how the islanders story has been told by others.
Katherine Routledge worked on an extensive survey of the island, this included talking to the inhabitants as well as examining the fascinating standing stones and enigmatic heads that the place is famous for. Her findings were never fully published however and this left a vacuum in the west’s knowledge of this far flung island. Into this vacuum seeped assumptions. One of the most persistent of these assumptions is that there had once been a thriving forest on the island which the islander had destroyed themselves in a frenzy of statue building. The idea being that the trees were used to roll the statues into place (Pitts has very interesting findings on this idea and on the more modern theory that the statues ‘walked’). Pitts shows that these conventions can be questioned very robustly.
There was an culturally devastating event which lead to the depopulation of the island but rather than being a self-inflicted wound that can actually be traced back to the moment Europeans came to the island and started taking away the residents and forcing them to work as slaves in other parts of the world.
Pitts in this case becomes an archaeologist not only of the earth but of the records. He examined what was left of Routledge’s work and was able to debunk many of the racist theories that grew up in the twentieth century around Rapa Nui.
This book is something special. It is an account of how we got a history of an entire island wrong for years. It is also a vindication of the work of Katherine Routledge who has since been forgotten. This deserves a place on the shelf of anyone who takes an interest in world archaeology and anyone who enjoys having their own assumptions challenged.

Thank you to publisher for a review copy of this book.

[BethFishReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Journalist/archaeologist Mike Pitts wants to set the record straight on the history and traditional culture of the Rapa Nui, better known as Easter Islanders.

Relying on firsthand accounts of the initial contacts between the Rapa Nui and Westerners (including James Cook), science (such as radiocarbon dating and genetics), and the work of Katherine Routledge (an early-twentieth-century anthropologist), Pitts offers reasonable explanations for several of the Easter Island mysteries.

For example, he argues that the islanders did not deforest their homeland to move and erect their statues. In fact, he shows how the Rapa Nui were well versed in good agricultural practices and that they made excellent use of their limited resources. He also debunks the cannibal/warfare theories of islander cultural.

Despite Thor Heyerdahl's insistence that the island was settled by South Americans (who he claimed were also responsible for the statues), Pitt uses science to show that the first settlers traveled east across the Pacific and had virtually no contact with the continent. The islanders have deep genetic and cultural roots in Polynesia. Other topics include speculation on an island writing system and on the meaning of the statues.

While Pitts offers quite a lot to think about, his writing style is not overly engaging. I agree with other reviewers that the book can be a bit of a slog. I was disappointed that he lost focus on Katherine Routledge's research, and I'm left wondering how much of it had been recovered.

On the other hand, Island at the Edge of the World goes a long way in setting the record straight and showing that the Rapa Nui had a thriving culture before they and their island were exploited by outsiders.

The book is in my personal library.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having recently returned from Rapa Nui, I was excited to read this history. I enjoyed learning more about the island's history and also about alternative interpretations of the limited archeological records. Pitt's research was well-written and thoughtful. While he did not ultimately insist on a new interpretation of current ideas, he opened the door wide to other plausible options of the island's history.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

This does a great job of dispelling common misconceptions on Rapa Nui’s history, though the way the information is paced through its three separate narratives felt a tad cumbersome at times. Still compelling!

[Roger Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was surprised at how straightforward the author’s analysis on how Easter Island’s residents disappeared was. He quickly dispels of fantastical notions of aliens and clearly articulates using the available evidence how the great population loss was due to the familiar prosaic factors of colonization and its attending effects of displacement and disease.

[Jonathan Crain · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first encountered Easter Island in the 1994 film "Rapa Nui"—unsettled, intrigued, and certain the story was incomplete. Further reading only deepened my skepticism: I found environmental parables, racialized speculation, and assertions that seemed designed to confirm contemporary anxieties rather than illuminate the past. Mike Pitts’s "Island at the Edge of the World" is the book I needed then.

Pitts aims to dismantle what he terms the “ecocide narrative,” the enduring assertion that the Rapanui precipitated their own downfall through environmental mismanagement, deforesting the island to support a purportedly reckless statue-building cult, which allegedly led to warfare and cannibalism. While this narrative may function as a compelling allegory, it does not withstand historical scrutiny. Instead, Pitts reconstructs the history of a resilient Polynesian society that adapted resourcefully to extreme isolation, only to be devastated in the nineteenth century by slave raids, disease, and colonial dispossession.

The book’s structure mirrors its central argument. Pitts opens with the consequences of European contact, including slave raids, disease, and the establishment of a sheep ranch, before analyzing how the island was subsequently studied and misinterpreted. Only after this does he reconstruct ancient Rapanui society. This sequence is intentional: understanding the island’s past requires first recognizing the violence that destroyed it and the misinterpretations that followed. The collapse must be clearly understood before the society’s achievements can be accurately assessed.

The book’s primary innovation is its recovery of Katherine Routledge’s archival materials. Routledge arrived on Rapa Nui in 1914 with her husband Scoresby aboard their custom-built yacht, the "Mana," with the intention of conducting the island’s first systematic archaeological and ethnographic study. The unique value of her work lies in its timing: she interviewed elders who retained living memories of pre-collapse traditions. Routledge acquired the language, mapped the quarries, documented ceremonial sites, and recorded the meanings of the moai as understood by their creators. Following her subsequent mental breakdown, her research became dispersed across English archives, remaining uncatalogued and largely unexamined for decades. The absence of her voice allowed speculative theories, such as those involving ancient aliens and lost continents, to proliferate in place of rigorous archaeology.

Pitts devoted years to reconstructing Routledge’s fragmented notebooks and field records. The resulting narrative challenges nearly all assumptions of the prevailing popular account. Early European visitors—Roggeveen in 1722, the Spanish in 1770, and Cook in 1774—did not encounter a society in terminal decline. Instead, they observed ongoing ceremonies at standing statues, the cultivation of sophisticated gardens utilizing lithic mulch (volcanic rock that retained moisture and enriched soil), and a social structure organized under clan chiefs capable of formal diplomatic engagement. La Pérouse noted that the islanders tilled their fields “with a great deal of intelligence.” Such observations are inconsistent with the notion of societal collapse.

The true collapse of Rapa Nui society was abrupt and externally imposed. In 1862, Peruvian slave ships arrived and seized an estimated 1,500 individuals, including most leaders and ritual specialists who were custodians of cultural knowledge. International intervention eventually compelled Peru to repatriate some survivors, but they returned carrying smallpox and tuberculosis. The island’s population fell from approximately 5,000 to only 110 by 1877. This event constituted not a gradual decline, but demographic devastation. The remaining population was confined to Hanga Roa, enclosed by a wall, as their land was converted into a sheep ranch and their gardens were destroyed by grazing livestock.

The toppled moai, frequently cited as evidence of pre-contact civil conflict, actually fell during this period of upheaval. Their destruction was a symptom of societal devastation, not its cause.

Pitts adopts a deliberately polemical stance. He examines how the ecocide narrative has appealed to various audiences: environmental advocates have embraced it as a cautionary tale, while filmmakers have exploited its dramatic potential. The 1994 "Rapa Nui" film is a particular source of frustration for Pitts, as it transformed academic conjecture into cinematic certainty and, in the process, damaged archaeological sites and left fiberglass “statues” scattered across the island. The film crew’s complaints about food shortages, which were a direct result of their own consumption, serve as a poignant example for Pitts, who highlights the irony that Hollywood enacted the very resource depletion it erroneously attributed to the Rapanui.

Pitts grounds his arguments in DNA analysis, paleobotanical research, experimental archaeology, and meticulous examination of early European accounts. When asserting that the moai were transported upright rather than rolled, or that the rongorongo script likely originated after European contact, he acknowledges areas of uncertainty without resorting to false equivalence. Pitts maintains that not all interpretations hold equal merit and rejects theories rooted in racial skepticism or unsupported environmental moralizing.

The book is not without limitations. Certain reconstructions rely on inference, and Pitts at times dismisses oral traditions that contradict material evidence, a tension he acknowledges but does not entirely resolve. However, these challenges are intrinsic to authentic historical revision, rather than the uncritical repetition of established narratives.

Pitts ultimately restores agency to the Rapanui. Their history has often been recast as a cautionary tale, distorted to reflect Western anxieties about environmental limits and societal collapse. The true narrative, characterized by resilience and disrupted by colonial violence, is less convenient but far more instructive. "Island at the Edge of the World" does not cater to readers seeking mystery or allegory; rather, it challenges those willing to confront the reality that historical truth is frequently more complex and unsettling than the parables we construct.

This review is of an advance reader’s edition provided by NetGalley and Mariner Books.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting subject to be sure, but one presented in a way that feels reductive in its arguments.

As with any piece of nonfiction, the story needs to start with the facts and end with conclusive remarks, not the other way around. That the people of Rapa Nui were exploited by colonialism I have no doubt, and because history is always written by the victors, I’m sure they’ve also been disproportionately blamed for the issues that have plagued the island.

That said, when you present the narrative backward by putting your conclusive opinions first as is the case here, the text appears as the product of an author with an opinion looking for facts that fit instead of an author who found facts and then developed an informed opinion.

A better approach would probably have been to make this a book about Routledge. This puts facts and conclusions into the correct narrative order and likely still results in the same outcome.

I also think that a book like this needs to do a lot more justice to the location. Why should readers care about this place? What makes it special or interesting? Pitts gives us little descriptive character for the island, whether about its location or visual appearance or peoples or resources, and it makes the narrative even more difficult to engage with meaningfully.

[Dawn Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an absolutely fascinating book!

What I knew about Easter Island/Rapa Nui I soon found out, was next-to-nothing [most was from a long-forgotten book I read as a child, and info from a Thor Heyerdahl-loving ex] and reading this book quickly filled in the blanks.

Told in a way even I [a non-science person] could understand, one learns the history of the island [not always a pleasant read unfortunately], the study of the island by Katherine Routledge, who, along with her husband, did a deep archeological dive of the island and its peoples and the statues, along with the misconceptions about Rapa Nui that have been perpetuated over the years and what is being down now to correct it and to preserve what is left.

Well-written [and narrated. The author, who has a lovely speaking voice narrates this book and it is absolutely fantastic] and researched [the author is both an archeologist AND a journalist and this all works in his favor], this is a book that will shock, fascinate, and stay with you for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley, Mike Pitts, and Mariner Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first section is a bit of a slog retelling the usual info as known in the past with all of its mismanagement and abuse of the locals.
Then is the section describing the work that was done by Katherine Routledge and her exploration of Rapa Nui as an anthropologist working there on an extensive survey and oral histories in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The third section regards the current archaeological studies and what we can glean from the
explanations of the artifacts and architectural details that bring the ancients come to life.
Finally there is all of the references and source material.
I requested and received a temporary uncorrected advance reader e-proof from Mariner Books via NetGalley. Pub Date Jan 27, 2026 #preorder
#IslandattheEdgeoftheWorld by #MikePittsArchaeologist @Netgalley @marinerbooks @harpercollins @goodreads @bookbub @librarythingofficial ***** Review #thestorygraph #bookshop_org #bookshop_org_uk #bookshop_org_ca #archaeology #historicalresearch #anthropology

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title of the book is Island at the Edge of the World: The Forgotten History of Easter Island. I don't know where Goodreads came up with a longer title. I would not term the book "provocative." It is a reasoned review of previous studies of Rapa Nui. It covers settlement of the island, early European explorers, Katherine and Scoresby Routledge, Thor Heyerdahl, Jared Diamond, and other observers (even Madame Blavatsky gets a nod).
Pitts is a British archaeologist with field experience at Stonehenge. I don't believe he has been on Rapa Nui recently. The book could use a bit of coverage of ongoing on the island by foreign and indigenous archaeologists. The bibliography does get up to Rull and Stevenson, 2022. A good beginning.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A vital and timely work of historical adventure and reclamation by British archaeological scholar Mike Pitts—a book that rewrites the popular yet flawed history of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and uses newly unearthed findings and documents to challenge the long-standing historical assumptions about the manmade ecological disaster that caused the island’s collapse.

Rapa Nui, known to Western cultures as Easter Island for centuries, has long been a source of mystery. While the massive stone statues that populate the island’s landscape have loomed in the popular Western imagination since Europeans first set foot there in 1722, in recent years, the island has gained infamy as a cautionary tale of eco-destruction. The island’s history as it’s been written tells of Polynesians who carelessly farmed, plundered their natural resources, and battled each other, dooming their delicate ecosystem and becoming a warning to us all about the frailty of our natural world.

For too long, people have imposed their own theories on this extraordinary place and its inhabitants. Thor Heyerdahl, after his famous Kon-Tiki expedition, claimed the island had been discovered by light-skinned people from South America, believing only they could have been capable of travelling there and building the statues. Erich von Däniken took it to greater extremes, saying the statues had been carved by aliens. More recently, Jared Diamond's theory of ecocide—that Islanders destroyed their world by cutting down all the trees—has become popular as a vital message about the need to conserve our planet's resources.

But what if that history is wrong?

In The Island at the Edge of the World, archaeological writer and scholar Mike Pitts offers a direct challenge to the orthodoxy of Rapa Nui, bringing to light new research and documents that tell a dramatic and surprising story about what really led to the island’s downfall. Relying on the latest archaeological findings, he paints a vastly different portrait of what life was like on the island before the first Europeans arrived, investigating why a Polynesian people who succeeded for centuries throughout the South Pacific supposedly failed to thrive in Rapa Nui. Pitts also unearths the vital story of one of the first anthropologists to study Rapa Nui, an Oxford-trained iconoclast named Katherine Routledge, who was instrumental in collecting firsthand accounts from the Polynesians living on Rapa Nui in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But though Routledge’s impressive scholarship captured the oral traditions of what life had been like pre-1722, her work was widely dismissed because of her gender, her reliance on indigenous perspectives, and her conclusions which contradicted her historical peers.

A stunning work of revisionism, this book raises critical questions about who gets to write history and the stakes of ignoring that history’s true authors. Provocative and illuminating, The Island at the Edge of the World will change the way people think about Easter Island, its colonial legacy, and where the blame for its devastation truly lies.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: An archaeologist with access to twenty-first century morals and mores and technology is not going to write with kindness towards the previous generations' conclusions. They're rooted in outdated assumptions, using techniques that feel shockingly cursory to modern sensibilities; most shocking is the unquestioning racism of so very much of the analysis made by earlier generations.

A third, the first third, of the book relays those earlier analyses with what felt to me as condign levels of condemnation or disagreement, couched in evocative language. If you're offering a different light on past data with newer data and previously unavailable technology, casting shade is inevitable. Why not begin with tendentious tones? Many cavil at this. I do not.

After bringing attention to, in the second third, an underknown and too-little celebrated Katherine Routledge and her astute observations and contextualizations of the society and culture of the island, Pitts goes into the modern archaeology and emerging understanding of Rapa Nui. It's a paradigm shift, and we're seeing it in its earliest days.

I found the book as a whole fascinating, creating a gestalt of scholarly opinion's mechanisms of change as evidence...and society's changing mores...demand. It is not a simple bowing to the winds of fashion as the reactionaries and recidivists with political axes to grind insist. It is the scientific method at work, correcting its data to account for developments across all fronts of scholarship. No "Truth" is immutable, scary as many people find that fact. Fixing thoughts into cages of ideology is never permanent. Examining data, analyzing orthodoxy's tenets, is how Einstein blew open the ideas of physics...out came cell phones, computers, the entire internet.

I won't pretend I was completely fascinated during the whole read. It was a slog to read the archaeology jargon but it yielded a really fascinating new understanding of a place most of us are intrigued by. More than that, though, this is a perfect example of how science works: take a data set, examine it, add to it, and analyze both the before and after data sets. Present conclusions as "this new data refutes/supports previous data; the current, amended data set supports/refutes the following conclusions."

It's a message I like, I support, and I choose to amplify.

[Andrea Wenger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book overturns the accepted history of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), presenting new evidence and the rediscovered research of WWI-era anthropologist Katherine Routledge. It challenges the narrative of ecological self-destruction, revealing the surprising truth about the island and the Polynesians who called it home. This corrective history is illuminating persuasive, engrossing, and easy to read.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[MaddiBReading · Rating 5 out of 5]

[ARC Review] This was an interesting read! I had to read up on Easter Island for a class last year and this added way more context to the academic articles I read. Its an indepth read on the progress of the development on the island and impact of different periods (and people). It was enlightening but also read really easy so I wasnt bogged down with a dense amount of notes or information.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Archaeologist, Michael Pitts, writes of Easter Island’s provocative history. He sorts through myths, speculations and facts with current research and shows how it clarifies, confirms and/or disconfirms common perceptions.

Pitts shows the first contacts of the indigenous people with the outside world. It appears the Dutch (Roggeven), Spanish (Gonzalez de la Rosa) and British (Cook) merely came and went. After this, a series of ships came and took islanders to far away places to be enslaved. The island’s population went from an estimated 4000 - 5000 to an estimated 110.

In the late 1800’s. missionaries came and further separated the islanders from their history and culture. Ranching interests also came and took the land of this depleted and traumatized population. With the loss of people, land and religion, their own legends, customs and the reasons for monument building were lost.

The first professional endeavor to find the island’s history was in the 1930’s. Pitts shows how Scoresby and Katherine Routledge, a British a couple with a background in archaeology, built a team and outfitted a research voyage. They were gone several years, spending 17 months on the island.

In this time, Katherine did significant foundational work. She learned the local language, conducted and recorded interviews, measured statues and remains of structures, found “roads”, documented the “Bird Cult” and more. Katherine’s work is heavily cited in this book which shows the significance of her work for most (if not all) subsequent studies.

Science has helped recover some history. It confirms the range of dates when the settlers arrived and has confirmed that they were mostly Polynesian with some Native (South) Americans . Pitts helps us appreciate the planning, skill and bravery required for such a voyage.

While science cannot confirm or disconfirm the myths of cannibalism and constant war, the many archaeological digs and studies show “no evidence”. Research also frees the Rapa Nui people from the charge of “ecoside” (depleting their environment). Research shows the island is and was always poor in resources including fresh water and game.

A weakness in the writing is that things are introduced and not clearly explained. For instance, Katherine discovers a road. Then you learn that it is “paved”. (How can this be?) Later you learn that the paving is with stones. (Isn’t a dirt path better… especially for bare feet?) Later, yet, you learn of the (main) theory is that the stone made road was helpful for moving the sculptures. (For a good description of how this worked I went to the internet).

The text of the last third of the book was a problem for me. In the first parts, there were head scratching gaps in information (like the "paved road"). in the last part there were many. Also, in comparison to the first parts, it was very wordy. This was not helped by the author's style of long sentences. Like another Goodreads reviewer, had to do a lot of re-reading to get the meaning. Eventually I started skimming and used the internet to fill in.

A lot was covered in the last 3 (skimmed) chapters.. A few topics include:
• The carving of the statues and how they were carried and erected.
• Tablets: how they were made and the ritual of reading them.
• The “Bird Cult”
• Why Katherine’s notes and drawings have not been fully utilized.
• Katherine's hospitalization upon return to England. (What was the evidence that she was mentally ill? - Was this for her husband’s convenience - like T.S. Eliot’s treatment of his wife?)
• The issue of re-patriation of Easter Islands's heritage from museums around the world back to Easter Island.

The book has a clear map of Polynesia. There are B&W illustrations, color plates, an index and footnotes.

Some of the photos are good such as the one of the tents where the Routledge’s lived for 5 months (How about photos of other island homes?) and significant statues. Some photos are too dark to be helpful. There is only one photo showing any Rapa Nui people of today.

The one photo if the Rapa Nui people illustrates the problem of the text: something provocative is introduced with no description. Why are the people in the photo wearing masks? Where did they get them (and their materials) and what is their meaning? What is the significance of Scoresby’s “dance”? (I checked the Index to see if I missed this somewhere in the skimming.... I presume it has something to do with the "Bird Cult" but could not find it.)

This is an important book. It brings a lot together and will undoubtedly serve as a foundation for future works. The author clearly knows the material. I would like to give this 5 stars for the value of the content, but the writing, particularly at the end, and the disappointment in photos weigh it down.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars, in part to differentiate me from History Nerd-Toddler. It’s somewhere between 4.25-4.5 to be precise, but I’ll round up. The Goodreads average of around 3.75 is too low.

This book does “set a marker” for the future of studies of Rapa Nui, pushing the ball further forward on a couple of other recent books.

Now, a bit of callouts.

First, contra History Toddler, it’s not three narratives. It’s one book with two long prologues, each about 20 percent of the total.

Second, he complains about Pitts taking undeserved, unsubstantiated potshots at non-explorers in the first prologue, but doesn’t say who.

Well, I see four groups in that prologue beyond explorers. Surely, Soy Boy isn’t supporting slavers, and likely not the Chilean sheep rancher and industrialist company that ran Rapa Nui like a company town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That leaves cultural appropriationists and Catholic priests. Soy Boy doesn’t review politics books, but, reading between the lines, tho he’s not a wingnut, he seems to tilt mildly to moderately right. So, Mike Pitts attacking poor benighted priests is a no-no.

==

Contra a two-star review and per the above, no, there’s nowhere enough material for Pitts to have written a book about Katherine and Scoresby Routledge, which also would not have been a book about Easter Island. And, contra others, it and the first prologue are both needed. The first prologue, per up top, gets you up to the early 20th century and the Routledges, and also establish that enslavement, not ecocide, was what devastated the natives. Actual revisionism is in the main portion of the book, not so much the first prologue, other than overthrowing the ecocide idea. Also note both Routledges did important work; Pitts cites Katherine more but also Scoresby.

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And, this is really not such stark revisionism. Per the island’s Wiki page, there’s 30 years of research Pitts builds on, from people like Hunt and Lipo, also mentioned extensively in his book.

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Interesting on the American Indian DNA, pretty firmly established at about 4 percent. I knew about the sweet potato in parts of Polynesia; I thought it was just possible it arrived by ocean wave transport. But, if there is actual American Indian admixture, well, surely they would have brought it, or rather, per Pitts, Polynesians who overshot, then got Amerind DNA, would have brought it. That, overshoot then return, makes MUCH more sense than Heyerdahl and his racist-based ideas.

==

The 1200 CE colonization date sounds right, versus the old 800, which sounds too old. That said, debate is even hotter on the settlement of Hawaii, at another corner of the Polynesian triangle.

==

The Polynesians ate rats and brought them with them like chickens, pigs and dogs; did not know that. On what they found on the island, we don’t know for sure what type of palm tree was there and how prevalent it was. That said, it did go extinct before European contact, which Pitts doesn’t mention. Without a full-blown “ecocide,” the Rapanuians may have been partially up a creek anyway. So, Pitts et al may be pushing back a bit too hard at times. If not due to under-rating by others, this is the biggest thing that would lead me to take it down to 4 stars. The islanders were stuck there by 1650, with declining fishing ability, less and less seabird and egg food as well, and taller trees all gone.

==

Rope walking would not have worked with fragile tuff-like statue rock.

Rollers only work if tree trunks are almost perfectly round and roads almost perfectly smooth. Stonehenge experiments show that, otherwise, with henges, they’ll run away from you.

Sledges WILL work, as shown on Easter Island.

==

Carving time? Even going slower than Scoresby Routledge’s guesstimates, 50 people could carve 4 a year, easily. With that, Pitts then digs into a possible evolutionary history of statue types, locations and purposes within island sociology and its development.

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Peak island population 5k? Surely not more than that, per one or two estimates.

==

Birdman cult evolved, tho probably already existing, in response to first early western sailor visits, perhaps especially the Spanish one. This last part, complete with look at petroglyphs that I did not know Rapa Nui had, was itself worth the last half of the book.

[Pam Coon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of Easter Island, and the Polynesians who settled there centuries ago. It is the story of their endurance on one of the least habitable islands, of their culture, stories and history. The island was “discovered” by the Dutch in the early 1700’s. And that began the demise as well as the lost history of these peoples. Of course the statues/moiris fascinated the arrivals, who managed to take some with them, the most famous resides at the British museum. The islanders were victims of disease, many sold into slavery, and it is no wonder that their rich history was lost. From a population that likely measured between 5000-8000, by the 1870’s, there were perhaps 100 left. Historians have explained their demise in many ways, that they cut down all the trees to move the statues, that the statues were their gods, that they were ignorant and responsible for their own collapse. But this author argues that the island was likely treeless from its discovery, that the natives arrived with chickens, yams, taro, bananas, and they wisely created farms where they successfully grew crops and sustained themselves with ingenious farming practices. Unlike others South Sea Islands, Easter Island had no tall volcanoes (yes it was formed by 3 volcanoes, but they are collapsed with gathering water in their craters. There are no rivers or streams on the island, but plenty of rainfall. In the early 1900’s, Catherine Routledge and here husband, Scoresby, chose to leave England and go to Easter Island to study its origin. Catherine learned the language, and she and her husband explored the island, finding roads, statues ilying on the ground, some finished, some in the process of being chiseled. Catherine took reams and reams of notes, even some photographs, and published a book of her findings in 1919. But her notes, which were disorganized, were given to the British Museum, and over time, have been sold or lost. Sadly she may have suffered from a mental illness and was eventually sent to an asylum where she died before being able to organize her wealth of information. Aside from her book (which is a huge contribution), much of what might have been has been lost. The author of this book, though, makes it clear that even reputable scientists like Jared Diamond, and Thor Heyerdahl, got it wrong. The natives did not commit “ecocide”. They had a language, they had traditions. Did they worship the moiris? How did they move them? Did they have a form of writing (as seen on carvings? They did have rituals and customs especially related to birds and eggs. They have left us with many petroglyphs, carved into the soft red and yellow rock. But much of what could have been known, had history been different, is lost. We can speculate but we can’t never truly know.

[RiedlerReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

First – Who should read this? If you are interested in…
1. Archaeology of lost civilizations/cities (ex. Mayans, Mesopotamia, Pompeii, etc.)
2. The Age of Exploration/Discovery when Europeans started traveling the world
3. Well-researched historical theses/dissertations

Facts –
Easter Island (from here on referred to as Rapa Nui) is known the world-over only for its enormous statues of human bodies and heads. Pitts’s goal is to remedy that and explain the entire history of the island, beginning with its discovery during the Age of Exploration in the 18th century. He makes it clear that finding Rapa Nui truly was miraculous – even though the Polynesian and Micronesian islands had been found by explorers centuries before. Rapa Nui is simply a dot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, located by non-indigenous Europeans in times of the most basic of maps and navigation.
Pitts then uses what details remain to flesh out Rapa Nui's identity. Most of this information comes from Katherine Routledge, an English archaeologist/anthropologist, who moved to Rapa Nui as a researcher at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th. Routledge clearly knew the island and its people the best out of all early researchers, and Pitts doggedly seeks out whatever he can hunt down. In particular, he cites what first-hand evidence and interviews he can find to disprove negative rumors about the Rapanui and highlight their successful, and very secluded, culture! Sadly, there are a fair amount of information “holes” due to time and record preservation. And lastly, Pitts dives into what we know about the island TODAY, once again tracking down an astounding amount of current information.

Feels –
I was excited to read this book because I, like most people who know about Rapa Nui, only know it simply as a land of humongous statues and nothing more. After reading it, I can’t begin to imagine how much time Pitts must have spent researching Rapa Nui – the facts, stories, details, and other minutiae is astonishing. I can’t say I always enjoyed the intense play-by-play of its history…After all, it isn’t built around a plot per se, but around the evolution of knowledge with regards to the island. I enjoyed the final part of the book the most because it focused on what we currently know/believe about the island and how we got to this point.

Final Thoughts –
If you’ve ever been curious about Rapa Nui (Easter Island) this book will answer most, if not all, of your questions. Granted, a little at a time goes a long way. I strongly recommend reading in short stints rather than attacking it full-on so your mind doesn’t wander. And since Pitts reminds readers of facts and information quite often, you’ll be able to jump right back in with no problem!

[Richard Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before reading this book, I had bought into the Jared Diamond ecocide theory of Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island)- That the islanders destroyed their environment and their ability to flourish and communicate with other islands in their mania to build giant statues which had to be transported to their beach monuments on wood rollers. Only the giant palms could serve as rollers and soon they were gone, so the environment changed, agriculture was impoverished and the people could no longer build canoes that could carry them to other islands. Statue building came to a grinding halt with half finished and half transported statues in the quarries and lying along the roads to the beaches.

Mr. Pitts presents evidence that the environmental damage was caused as much by the European interlopers as by the islanders and that the statues were not abandoned in the quarries and along the roads but were intentionally left there as part of the statue building plan. The transport mechanism may not have been giant palm trunks, but something smaller and simpler like banana stalks. He also provides theories about the islanders mysterious independently developed pictographic script and DNA evidence that proves some intermixture between the Polynesians and people from South America, though almost certainly not as Thor Heyerdahl of Kon Tiki fame imagined it.

Mr. Pitts provides a lot of tantalizing evidence that pokes large holes in earlier theories, but he doesn't give a definitive alternative picture of what happened. That's intentional. He is making the point that part of the problem with earlier theories from Diamond, Heyerdahl and others was their wish to be comprehensive when there were not then and still are not enough facts on which to build a comprehensive theory. As archaeological techniques develop, we can gain new insights, but there are still many unknowns, some of which will probably never be explained. I liked that. I love the quest for knowledge and don't need it to produce final answers. Answers are almost never final, and we should not wish them to be so.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Thor Heyerdahl as a teen, and also Chariots of the Gods by van Daniken, and even Jared Diamond’s Collapse, all with their ideas about Easter Island, who erected those statues and what happened to the native society. Island at the Edge of the World proves their assertions are ridiculous. Sure, even as a teen I knew that space aliens didn’t erect all of Earth’s early monuments. Still, it was fun to read. But Diamond’s argument seems interesting, that the Easter Islanders caused their own ecological collapse. I mean, we see this happening today across the world.

Mike Pitts argues that all of the false narratives would have been avoided had Katherine Routledge’s research been public. In the early 20th c, Routledge was one of the first anthropologists to study Easter Island and record oral histories.

By this time, Europeans had been plundering the island for over a hundred years, taking slaves and bringing disease. The colonizers dismissed farming traditions that had supported thousands for generations, including the use of rocks to preserve ground moisture. The removed stone heads and artifacts.

Katherine and her husband spent three years on the island, unable to leave during WWI. She published a book in 1919, “half ethnography and archaeology, half travelogue,” but the bulk of her research was never released. Instead, her marriage in trouble, her husband forcible incarcerated Katherine in a lunatic asylum for the rest of her life.

Then one day, for some forgotten reason, people looked at a small, roughly carved stone figure, and wondered. What if it was big? really big? from Island at the End of the World

From the first settlers to Easter Island as a tourist attraction, this history answers some questions while others remain a mystery.

Fascinating reading.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.

[Ajitabh Pandey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Island at the Edge of the World by Mike Pitts offers a fascinating and accessible look at the history of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) while challenging some long-held assumptions about the island’s past. Pitts begins with a concise overview of the island’s history and the popular narrative that has often been repeated about its supposed societal collapse. He then introduces newer research and historical records that suggest the story may be far more complex than the traditional explanation. Even for readers who know little about Rapa Nui, the book provides a clear and engaging entry point into the island’s history and the debates surrounding it.

One of the most interesting parts of the book focuses on Katherine Routledge and her early twentieth-century exploration of the island. Before reading this book, I had never heard of her work, and learning about her expedition added an intriguing human dimension to the story of Rapa Nui research. At times, however, this section felt more focused on Routledge herself than on the details of her archaeological findings, which I personally found more compelling. Still, the material presented here sheds light on an important and often overlooked chapter in the study of the island.

In the final section, Pitts discusses how modern archaeological methods and new discoveries are helping researchers build a more accurate understanding of Rapa Nui and its people. I received an advanced reader copy through NetGalley, and I found the book to be both informative and enjoyable. For readers who are unfamiliar with the island’s history—as I was—this short book offers a wealth of insight, from questioning earlier historical interpretations to presenting firsthand accounts and explaining how archaeology continues to deepen our knowledge of this remarkable place.

[Jeimy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Island at the Edge of the World by Mike Pitts offers a detailed and revisionist examination of the history of Rapa Nui, challenging long-standing narratives about ecological collapse and cultural failure. Approaching the book with a preexisting fascination for the island—its monumental moai and the enduring questions surrounding them—I found a work grounded in extensive research, even as it resists providing definitive answers to many of those mysteries.

Pitts constructs a layered historical account, tracing the impact of European incursions and the ways in which early interpretations of the island’s history were shaped by colonialist assumptions. One of the book’s most compelling contributions is its examination of how these narratives, often rooted in misunderstanding or bias, continue to influence public perception despite more recent scholarship challenging their validity.

In addition to its historical analysis, the book incorporates discussions of the island’s botany and geology, broadening its scope and reinforcing its effort to present a comprehensive portrait of Rapa Nui. These elements add depth, though they also contribute to a style that can feel dense at times. While the writing may come across as dry, the material itself remains consistently engaging.

At the same time, the book provokes a sense of frustration, particularly in its detailing of the exploitation and plundering carried out during periods of European contact. This emotional response underscores the work’s broader significance, as it not only revises historical understanding but also highlights the consequences of who has traditionally controlled historical narratives.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting book. I love Polynesian history and culture, and this gave me all I could want about a corner of the Polynesian triangle I regretfully knew little about. Truly incredible how isolated these people were – they were descendants of Polynesian voyagers, and brought that culture with them. They were so far from any other landmass, that travel to and from the island was extremely rare in the period between when it was originally colonized and when Europeans arrived, which lasted a few hundred years, but we’re not really sure because of the way myth and reality blended in the Rapa Nui culture. Also, because they were treated horribly by outside powers, who brought disease and enslaved a huge percentage of the islanders. The history of Rapa Nui was lost along with its population. The author really paints a full, vibrant picture of the Rapa Nui, it seems like the island, its people, its history, and its stonework left an indelible impression. I’ve only seen pictures of the moai – I’m sure that seeing them in situ – in the quarries and beautiful scenery of Rapa Nui is a very spiritual experience. I can’t imagine traveling there – looking on the internet, it’s a 5.5 hour flight from Santiago. To travel to a tiny, remote island in the middle of an enormous ocean… It sounds very spiritual. Communing with nature on another level, and gazing on these megaliths that were seemingly made from magic. Hah, I don’t know, maybe I can imagine it.

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.8 stars! I've always been fascinated by the ancient mysteries; Stonehenge, Pompeii, ancient Aztec culture, and of course Easter Island, which is the focus of this book. Since its discovery in the 18th century, scientists and archaeologists have been scratching their heads; who are the inhabitants? What are their ways, their beliefs, their daily living routines? And what on earth are those monolith statues facing away from the ocean, huge and mysterious? This book does not provide answers, but it does explore WHY those answers are so elusive. The island was decimated by slavers in the 1800's, taking away most natives who might have been able to tell their stories. We are left with a blank slate filled with remnants and guesses.

The book also explores the husband and wife team who spent years in the early 1900's exploring and gathering data--they were on to something and had suppositions and fact based ideas. However through a string of bad luck and misogyny, the woman, Katherine's, research has never been properly explored.

I came away from this book with no more answers but at least a larger understanding of the huge conundrum that lies in large scale archaeological explorations. Unearthing the past and figuring out the real story is really hard. This book was frustrating in its non-answers, but I did very much appreciated the author's thorough research and de-bunking many of the (frankly ridiculous) previous theories.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pitts, a British archaeologist and author, begins his latest book with a bold appeal: It is time to question everything we have been told about Rapa Nui (Easter Island).. For much of modern history, this isolated island, located more than 2,000 miles west of Santiago, Chile, has been blamed for its own death. Yet the familiar tales of war, cannibalism, and ecocide laced with judgment and condemnation have little historical truth. The author tells that slavery, kidnapping, and disease, driven by European conquest are to blame. He asks the reader to look at how did the Rapa Nui flourish for so long? Their island is, according to Pitts, is a place of fragile soil, restricted marine life, and no permanent freshwater streams. The answer lies in bravura skill in farming and land management. Some of these insights came due to the pioneering work of British archeologist Katherine Routledge. Pitts gives readers an affectionate profile of her. She carried out extraordinary fieldwork and reporting during an expedition to the island in 1914. But had her work questioned, and then overridden by the London establishment. Throughout his book, Pitts argues his case.

Disclaimer: I received an arc of this book from the author/publisher from Netgalley. I wasn’t obligated to write a favorable review. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pitts has spent a good amount of time on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), and has thoroughly reviewed the literature studying it. This book is seriously disjointed, though, and if I wasn't so fascinated by the statues I wouldn't have made it through the text. I had to skim the last 150 pages.

Pitts spends way too much time detailing the efforts of the Routledges, a British husband and wife archeological team, to document and study life on Rapa Nui. Pitts is seeking to elevate their work, much of which remains unpublished, but the story of their work is not why I picked up this book.

When Pitts explains the history of the island, and argues against prevailing thought about it, he makes careful use of carbon-dating and DNA technologies. He posits a theory about the most vexing question of Rapa Nui (how did the islanders move the statues from the quarries to the coast?) but he freely admits that no one really knows how it was done.

I was especially interested to read Pitts' strongest assertion, that the collapse of the native population at Rapa Nui was due to contact with Europeans, who kidnapped hundreds or even thousands of islanders into slavery and introduced diseases like smallpox in return. This well-supported claim is far different from the standard view that the islanders killed and ate each other because they couldn't help themselves.