For Bougainville and his starving sailors, Tahiti was nothing short of paradise. The island’s abundance — and the sexual liberality of its people — left the Frenchmen dazzled. Only when the Tahitian chief made clear that his hospitality would not last forever did Bougainville return to his duties

The journey through unknown atolls, reefs, and the depths of the South Seas placed Bougainville and his crew in danger once more. Beneath a paradisiacal sun, the Frenchmen suffered from hunger and scurvy, constantly at risk of foundering on unpredictable, uncharted coral reefs. At the Great Barrier Reef, Bougainville chose to veer north — and with that decision, he lost his chance to discover Australia. Today, Bougainville’s lasting legacy may be the stunning flowering vine that bears his name: the bougainvillea

In 2003, Frenchman Teva Sylvain — born in Papeete, the capital of Tahiti — makes a living selling photographs of half-naked island women at postcard-perfect locations. His pictures are everywhere. But since French troops began withdrawing from Polynesia, the market for such images has been declining. Sylvain, however, holds on to his life in paradise.

A civil war had been tearing apart the island of Bougainville — part of Papua New Guinea — for over ten years. A state of emergency still holds. The dispute over the vast Panguna gold and copper mine ignited a bloody conflict between the central government, local landowners, day labourers, and foreign mine operators. More than 10,000 people — ten percent of the population — have already lost their lives. We follow one of the thousands who fled: refugee Surei Stevenson, as she returns to this former German colony, which after fifteen years of economic stagnation has begun to resemble paradise once more — except where guerrilla fighters are still tenaciously defending their territory