Michael C. Reed, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (June 1987), 32 East 57th St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
The overthrow of governments is common in much of Africa. Yet in the small West African country of Gabon, French neocolonialism has helped ensure that only two men have ruled this nation of perhaps one million since its independence in 1960. Gabon's very identity, notes Reed, a doc- toral candidate at the University of Washington, Seattle, "is inseparable from France."
Gabon's...