Southern and Eastern Polynesia

The second volume in Glynn Barratt's projected quartet on thenaval, scientific, and social activities of the Imperial Russian Navyin the South Pacific, this book describes Russian activities in NewZealand, the Austral Islands and Easter Island. These widely scatteredareas were all visited by warships of the Russian navy and by companiesof highly educated and observant officers and "gentlemen ofscience" in the early 1800's.

Barratt's annotated and careful translations of thevisitors' eyewitness accounts provide fascinating, sometimesamusing, reading about the landfalls of the ships. The Russians'journals, reports, and drawings are collated with artefacts collectedon the spot and with contemporaneous European data to produce a vividpicture of life and culture in these parts of the South Pacific in theearly post-contact period.

Although available in Soviet archives, many of the primary sourcesthat Barratt has examined for this book have until now been almostcompletely ignored by Western scholars in spite of their importance inunderstanding the changes that took place in post-contact Oceania.These archival holdings, as described by the author, will be of majorimportance to those interested in the history and ethnohistory ofsouthern and eastern Polynesia.