The French Overseas Empire

For more than five centuries France has been both a European and a global power. French explorers, traders, settlers, soldiers, and missionaries journeyed to the world's farthest reaches establishing colonies, bringing millions of people under French influence and claiming vast expanses of forests, jungles, deserts, and rich mineral and maritime resources. Through continued wars with rival powers, including Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, and Germany, France lost large portions of its empire and gained others. This is a story of colorful personalities and dramatic events: Cartier's exploration of Canada, Richelieu's and Colbert's global trading companies, Champlain the colonizer, the French presence in Louisiana, the vast but short-lived French empire in India, the nefarious slave trade, and France's defeat in its prosperous Caribbean colony, St. Domingue. Century-long conflict with some of its most valued possessions, such as Vietnam and Algeria, further hastened the empire's demise after World War II.

FREDERICK QUINN, an American diplomat and historian, who is a frequent visitor to the French Empire and written about the country's overseas presence for nearly three decades. His foreign service assignments in Francophone countries include Morocco, Haiti, Burkina Faso, Vietnam, and Cameroon. The Times Literary Supplement named his book,Democracy at Dawn: Notes from Poland and Points East, one of its international books of the year for 1998.