"It is high time that someone made a sober study of the French Pacific islands. They have not been entirely neglected, though--it has been the fashion to dip a dilettante pen into Tahitian (though scarcely New Caledonian) themes, and French geographers have given us some splendid work. But Thompson and Adloff refuse to be diverted by swaying palms and curving beaches; they give evenhanded treatment to both French Polynesia and New Caledonia, they view the Pacific from the perspective of Franco-African experience, and they write in English. The two territories, of course, offer a telling...