Book Review: Africa: Africa and World Order
| Author | Douglas G. Anglin |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206401900141 |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
RviEws
121
Here
a
lance
is
tilted
at
Eva
Meyerowitz
on
the
question
of
Akan
origins
but
the
chapter
soon
degenerates into
mere
description.
Worse
is
to
come
for
the
remaining
chapters
contain
little
more
than
obiter
dicta
on
various
aspects
of
the
national struggle
including
such
stale
items
as
the
failure
of
Europe
to
live up
to
its
liberal
democratic
pre-
tentions,
the
abs'urdities
of
colonial
thinking,
and
the
wickedness
of
Sir
Roy
Welensky.
There
is
a
long,
interesting,
and
entirely irrelevant
section
on
Africans
in
Europe before
the
19th
century.
Some
of
the
judgments
are
curiously naive,
such
as
the
claim
that
class
is
irrele-
vant
in Africa,
that
Europeans
will
inevitably
remain
in
Algeria
and
other
settler
colonies,
and
that
the
new
nationalist
governments
are
essentially
peaceful.
Nor
is
the
book
easy
to
read.
The
author
is
a
professional
philo-
sopher
and cannot
restrain
an
addiction to
definition.
Much
of
this
is
written
in
a
barbarous
style.
One
sentence
will
illustrate:
"The
exaggeration
of
the importance
of
institutional
differences
is
a
perver-
sity
that
arises from
the
conception
of
method
as
being
concerned
with
the immediately overt, and
from
the
conception
of
explanation
of
all
societies
as
the
apotheosis
of
its
quite
static
and inertia-ridden
institu-
tional
framework
as
its
essence,
as
that
in
terms
of
which,
rather
than
simply
by
reference
to
which,
striking
features
of
the
society
must
be
explained."
This
is
combined
with
a
heavy
and
irritating
academic
facetiousness.
All
in
all,
it
is
a
very
bad
book,
which
is
a
pity,
for
the
author
could
have
explored
some
interesting
territory
instead
of
adding
to
the
list
of
dusty
reflections
on
African
nationalism.
Loyola
College
D.
C.
SAVAGE
AFRICA
AND
WORLD
ORDER.
Edited
by
Norman
J.
Padelford
and
Rupert
Emerson.
1963.
(New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger.
Toronto:
Burns
&
MacEachern.
152pp.
$5.50)
This
excellent
little
volume
reprints
without
change
a
series
of
individual
essays
on
the
theme
"Africa
and
International
Organization"
which
appeared
originally
in
a
special
issue
of
International
Organiza-
tion
in
the
spring
of
1962.
Its
aim
is
"to sketch
the
shape
and
to
sense
the
direction
of
some
of
the
major
forces
and
issues
involved in
the
new
Africa".
Three
of
the
essays
deal
broadly with
the
relations
of
African
states
with
the
United
Nations,
two
with
relations
with
each
other,
and
another
with
relations
with
the
Commonwealth.
Extensive
extracts
from
speeches
of
eight
African
leaders-five
from
West
Africa-before
the
U.N.
General
Assembly
are
also
included,
as
"any
discussion of
Africa's
place
in
the
world
order
would be
unthinkable without
including
the
Africans'
own
concept
of
it".
Finally,
there
is
a
valuable
16-page
"selected
bibliography".
While
each
of
the
essays
has
its
own
distinctive contribution
to
make,
two
in
particular
seem
to
this
reviewer to
be
outstanding.
One
is
Stanley
Hoffman's
penetrating
analysis
"In
Search of
a
Thread"
to
explain
the
course of
U.N.
policy
in
the
Congo
labyrinth.
His
conclusions
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