The Tuamotu Islands and Tahiti

Lawrence T. Woods is an assistant professor of political science at
Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec.

Complementing earlier volumes on Australia, Polynesia, and Melanesia,
this book presents the results of exhaustive research drawing on Russian
archival materials. In addition to excellent survey essays on Russian
contact with the Tuamotu Islands and Tahiti, Barratt, a professor of
Russian at Carleton University, offers translations of Russian
narratives found in officers’ logs; in some cases these are the first
translations of their kind. Essays on the scientific findings of these
expeditions round out each well-balanced section. Barratt has done his
profession proud, filled a significant gap in the maritime, scientific,
and ethnographic literature, and completed his own mission in exemplary
fashion. As the author confides in the introduction to this book, “If
I emphasize the fact that Russian sources, left by trained, objective
men, may be of value to the student of Tahiti and other islands, it is
because the very fact that they exist is largely ignored throughout the
West.”