As an idealist, Graham was drawn to the history of the Jesuit missions in Paraguay -- a period known as one of the golden ages of mankind. Protecting their Guarani Indian charges from slave raids from both the Spanish and the Portuguese, the missionaries built up a civilization isolated from the rest of the world and protected it fairly successfully for a century and a half until a Spanish fellow enforced the expulsion of the Jesuit order from South America. The film -The Mission- was loosely based on Graham's book and, although it took liberties with the story, was basically sympathetic to...