Russia And The South Pacific, Vol. 2: Southern and Eastern Polynesia, 1696-1840 - Hardcover

Barratt, Glynn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0774803053 ISBN 13: 9780774803052

Publisher: Univ of British Columbia Pr, 1989

Synopsis

The second volume in Glynn Barratt's projected quartet on the naval, scientific, and social activities of the Imperial Russian Navy in the South Pacific, this book describes Russian activities in New Zealand, the Austral Islands and Easter Island. These widely scattered areas were all visited by warships of the Russian navy and by companies of highly educated and observant officers and "gentlemen of science" in the early 1800's.

About this title

About the Author:

Glynn Barratt is a professor of Russian at Carleton University and the author of many books on Russia's naval and diplomatic history.

Review:

Barratt has made available fresh material on the Russian expeditions that will be of considerable interest to historians of maritime exploration. (Christon I. Archer Argonauta)

His careful translations of personal journals make for fascinating reading in addition to their worth to ethnographers. (Louise McReynolds The Contemporary Pacific)

The second volume in Glynn Barratt's projected quartet on the naval, scientific, and social activities of the Imperial Russian Navy in the South Pacific, this book describes Russian activities in New Zealand, the Austral Islands and Easter Island. These widely scattered areas were all visited by warships of the Russian navy and by companies of highly educated and observant officers and "gentlemen of science" in the early 1800's.

Barratt's annotated and careful translations of the visitors' eyewitness accounts provide fascinating, sometimes amusing, reading about the landfalls of the ships. The Russians' journals, reports, and drawings are collated with artefacts collected on the spot and with contemporaneous European data to produce a vivid picture of life and culture in these parts of the South Pacific in the early post-contact period.

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

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of British Columbia Pr
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0774803053
• ISBN 13: 9780774803052
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320