The Missionaries

'As I encountered so many abuses and saw so much damage to the human environment inflicted behind a pseudo-religious front, I found it impossible to remain silent. In the space of a mere thirty years so much has been swept away. The great human tragedy of the missionary conquest of the Pacific is being repeated now in all "untouched" parts of the world. In another thirty years no trace of aboriginal life anywhere will have survived' From the introduction

'Norman Lewis has produced a blistering attack on the cultural and enyironmental ruination - and, in some cases, the literal extermination - of indigenous tribes by North American fundamentalist missionaries . . . it maintains a studied, magnificently superior calm before the exhibiti'onofmercenary, self-serving illogicality, bogus piety and ruthless double-dealing it unveils. A scathing and ironic indictment of which a Voltaire or a Swift might be proud' Sunday Times

'Norman Lewis is one of the best writers, not of any particular decade, but of our century' Graham Greene