A bold and convincing revision of Rapa Nui’s history.
An archeologist reexamines the mystery of Rapa Nui—and offers answers.
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. For much of modern history, he tells us, this isolated island, located more than 2,000 miles west of Santiago, Chile, has been blamed for its own demise. Yet the familiar tales of war, cannibalism, and ecocide laced with judgment and condemnation have little grounding in historical truth. Instead, Pitts gives us a far more plausible account, in which slavery, kidnapping, and disease, driven by European conquest, are to blame. In Rapa Nui, the colonial playbook was catastrophically effective. It decimated the island nation in all but 15 years, during which its population plunged from 5,000 to little more than 100, with just 26 women. In a wise decision, Pitts plainly lays out the facts yet doesn’t dwell unnecessarily on tragedy. He instead asks us to reframe our line of inquiry from how things went wrong—after all, we now have answers—to how did the Rapa Nui flourish for so long? Their island is, according to Pitts, a place of fragile soil, restricted marine life, and no permanent freshwater streams. The answer lies in bravura skill in farming and land management. “Rapa Nui,” he says, “is the world’s greatest example of a people given lemons, and making lemonade.” Some of these insights come thanks 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, only to have her work questioned, and then overridden by the London establishment. Throughout his book, Pitts capably and passionately argues his case, though he occasionally veers into the perils of academic writing. The result is a welcome contribution to Pacific Island history that holds relevance not just for Rapa Nui, but for other islands across this vast ocean.
A bold and convincing revision of Rapa Nui’s history.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9780063344679
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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