The book is presented as an autobiography of the title character (whose birth name is Robinson Kreutznaer)&mdash;a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, before ultimately being rescued. The story has been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called &quot;M&aacute;s a Tierra&quot;, now part of Chile, which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.<br />Defoe probably based part of Robinson Crusoe on the real-life experiences of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor who at his own request was put ashore on an uninhabited island in 1704 after a quarrel with his captain and stayed there until 1709. But Defoe took his novel far beyond Selkirk&rsquo;s story by blending the traditions of Puritan spiritual autobiography with an insistent scrutiny of the nature of human beings as social creatures.&nbsp;