A brave effort to come to grips with this enigma of a British protectorate on the edge of the massive Chinese mainland, a little piece of rock and jungle with no resources of its own except its people and their native adaptability and sense of enterprise. Of course the situation has changed since the People's Republic resumed its possession in 1997, but this objective but loving portrayal of the island and its inhabitants gives us as good a background as any to help understand their current problems. As all others in this series of slightly over-sized volumes from the Time-Life stable, it is written by an accomplished writer and correspondent, the production qualities as usual are outstanding, and it is a serious work of ethnography and social history, not really a "children's book" of knowledge. ( )