A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa »

The Victorian poet and novelist Robert Louis Stevenson once said, "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant." The author of the magical A Child's Garden of Verses and the chilling The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson indeed planted powerful literary seeds -- that grew into undisputed classics.

In this tale Stevenson gives an eyewitness account of the battle of the three great Western nations of the time (Britain, Germany, and the United States) for control of Samoa. Stevenson romantically sided with the islands' traditional ruler against the Western powers, an unpopular position, particularly with the British. This book is both an excellent analysis of late-nineteenth-century colonialism, and just a plain good yarn in the best Stevenson tradition.