Book Review: Africa: South Africa
| Author | G. V. Doxey |
| Date | 01 December 1965 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206502000445 |
| Published date | 01 December 1965 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
576
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
during
which
many
confusing
and
complicated
things
happened
in
Palestine,
are
not
described
as
fully
or
as
well
as
the
earlier
years.
A
more
serious weakness,
one
common
to
many
of
us
who
write
about
Arab-Jewish
relations,
is
Sykes'
sketchy account
of
what
the
Arabs
in
Palestine
and
outside
were
doing
to
preserve
the
country
for
themselves,
apart
from
arguing
with
each
other,
and
killing
each
other
and
Jews.
The
Palestine
Arabs'
slow,
painful
and
ultimately
futile
political development
forms
an
important
constituent
of
the
Palestine
Question
and
for
those
who
want
to
know
about
it
Hurewitz
remains
the
major
source of
information.
Also,
a
harder
look
at
Arab
nationalism
might
have persuaded
Sykes
that
his
use
of
the
dramatic
technique
of
"cross
roads",
while
useful
for
the
reader,
is
not
really
justified:
one-way
highway
might
have
been
a
more
apt
metaphor.
Toronto
EARL
BERGER
Africa
SOUTH
AFRIcA.
A
Study
in
Conflict.
By
Pierre
L.
van
den
Berghe.
1965.
(Middletown,
Conn.:
Wesleyan University
Press.
Toronto:
Burns
&
MacEachern.
x,
371pp.
$10.75)
As
the
volume
of
literature
relating
to
social
studies
in
South
Africa
grows
apace,
one
looks
with
(pessimistic) hopefulness
for
a
fresh
approach, a
new
or
deeper analysis,
a
satisfactory
synthesis,
and
for
authoritative
scholarship.
Superficially,
at
least,
the
ground
has
now
been
pretty
well
worked
over
by
economists,
political
scien-
tists,
sociologists
and
psychologists,
and
for
the
Africanist
what
may
be
described
as
survey
works,
written
from
the
standpoint
of
more
than
one
discipline
and dealing
largely
in
generalisation,
add
little
to
his
knowledge
or
understanding.
There
is
ample
scope,
however,
for
studies
in
depth,
preferably
based
on
original
research,
and
the
work
under
review should
be
judged
by
this
criterion.
Dr.
van
den
Berghe's
book
does
not
qualify as
a
definitive
study
of
modern South
African
society,
although
he
raises
the reader's
hopes
in
his
introduction
by
promising
a
serious
study
"at
the
level
of
'total
social
system
analysis'
",
not
for
the
educated
layman,
but
for
the
Africanist,
and
particularly
of
course,
the
sociologist
and
anthropolo-
gist.
But
if
his
book
does
not
fulfil
all
the
expectations
raised
by
this
promise,
it
has
much
to
commend
it.
Indeed, in
the
reviewer's
opinion,
it
could
well
have
been
expanded.
It
seems
more
than
likely
that
Dr.
van
den
Berghe
could
have made
fuller
use of
his
material
and
con-
sequently
produced
a more
substantial
and
more
valuable
book.
There
is,
perhaps,
some
merit
in
brevity
in
an
era
when
verbosity
too
often
smothers scholarship
and
most
books
could
usefully
be
pruned.
But
the
danger
of
skimming
over
deep
water
and
leaving
too
many depths
unplumbed
should
also
be
avoided, except
by
those
who
are
soon
out
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