Maybe you're thinking of "Collapse", which covers Easter Island? I found Collapse fascinating. At first it was very persuasive, then I got to the chapter about

Maybe you're thinking of "Collapse", which covers Easter Island? I found Collapse fascinating. At first it was very persuasive, then I got to the chapter about Greenland, which posits that Norwegians at the time would rather starve than eat fish. At that point the book became fascinating for a different reason: The rhetoric and narrative are good enough to make it seem reasonable that people living on a coast rich in fish would develop advanced boats and boating technique, yet absolutely would not eat fish. It's all done with smooth prose: The book is smoothly easy to read and your attention is kept where you won't wonder why those boats were developed in the first place.