Re: Rapa-Nui

> Dear learned colleagues,
> A while ago I came across a rare example of decent historical movie (a
> movie indeed, produced by Kevin Costner) which is called simply Rapa-Nui.
> It spectacularly dramatizes the recent theory on the demise of the Easter
> Island mini-world-system, which makes the film appropriate for an
> undergraduate class.
> The special articles (a few) that I know of, however, are quite technical
> and difficult for poor freshmen. Please, suggest what could be better
> assigned (aside the relevant pages from the book of Chase-Dunn and Hall
> which has been already ordered for the Intro class). For inbstance, did
> Elena Yermolayeva publish anything on the Hawaii instance?
> Yours,
> Georgi Derluguian

Dear Gework,
I recommended you long ago simply Butinov's SOTSIALNAYA ORGANIZATSIYA 
POLINEZIYTSEV (Moscow: Nauka, 1982) which has a chapter on Rapa-Nui 
which is most clear 
and relevant for your task. Of 
course, it is in Russian. But when you were a student in the Moscow 
University, you read books in English. So just make your students 
read books in Russian. Professor Jamme of the Catholic University 
(Washington, DC) made the knowledge of Russia a necessary condition 
for all the postgraduates who wanted to study Ancient Yemen with him. 
I have heard the same about the late George Peter Murdock (who would 
tell a student to read a book, and on hearing that the book was in 
Dutch, would say: "Well, then learn Dutch"). Of course, it sounds odd 
in the USA. But it is entirely normal in Europe. So, Gework, why 
should you forget the European standards? Do your mission. Pull the Americans to the 
European level.

Yours,

Andrey
(Dr) Andrey Vitalyevich Korotayev, Head
Laboratory of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Institute of Cultural Anthropology
Russian State University for Humanities
6 Miusskaya Ploshchad
Moscow 125267, RUSSIA
FAX: +7 (095) 250 5109 (c/o Institute
of Cultural Anthropology)
EMAIL: andrei@rsuh.ru

Seniour Research Fellow
Oriental Institute
of the Russian Academy of Sciences
12 Rozhdestvenka, Moscow 103753, Russia
FAX:  +7 (095)  975 2396