On a long stretch of green coast in the South Pacific, hundreds of
enormous, impassive stone heads stand guard against the ravages of
time, war, and disease that have attempted over the centuries to
conquer Easter Island. Steven Roger Fischer offers the first
English-language history of Easter Island in "Island at the End of
the World," a fascinating chronicle of adversity, triumph, and the
enduring monumentality of the island's stone guards.
A small canoe with Polynesians brought the first humans to Easter
Island in 700 CE, and when boat travel in the South Pacific
drastically decreased around 1500, the Easter Islanders were forced
to adapt in order to survive their isolation. Adaptation, Fischer
asserts, was a continuous thread in the life of Easter Island: the
first European visitors, who viewed the awe-inspiring monolithic
busts in 1722, set off hundreds of years of violent warfare, trade,
and disease--from the smallpox, wars, and Great Death that
decimated the island to the late nineteenth-century Catholic
missionaries who tried to "save" it to a despotic Frenchman who
declared sole claim of the island and was soon killed by the
remaining 111 islanders. The rituals, leaders, and religions of the
Easter Islanders evolved with all of these events, and Fischer is
just as attentive to the island's cultural developments as he is to
its foreign invasions.
Bringing his history into the modern era, Fischer examines the
colonization and annexation of Easter Island by Chile, including
the Rapanui people's push for civil rights in 1964 and 1965, by
which they gained full citizenship and freedom of movement on the
island. As travel to and interest in the island rapidly expand,
"Islandat the End of the World" is an essential history of this
mysterious site.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
