Continuing the tradition of publishing the best papers of its annual meetings, the contributions of the French Colonial Historical Society’s 1982 meeting are drawn from the broad sweep of France’s colonial experience, ranging geographically from North America to Indo-China to Africa, and chronologically from the 17th century to the 1970s. Themes in social history, colonial literature, and the history of science complement the more traditional approaches of political and diplomatic history. Of interest to academic specialists in the former French empire and to all modern historians who deal with European expansion into the non-European world. Co-Published with the French Colonial Historical Society.