Book Review: Through Malan's Africa, before the African Storm, the Heart of Africa
| DOI | 10.1177/002070205601100315 |
| Date | 01 September 1956 |
| Author | Bruce Patterson |
| Published date | 01 September 1956 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWS
231
liberal
nor
progressive").
We
are
surprised
that,
among
the
"irritating
fantasies"
to
be
dispelled,
there
are
notions
about
Swiss
tolerance
and
linguistic capacity!
Less
unexpected
is
the
diagnosis
of
a
crisis
in
the
Puritan
ethic;
we
have
reports
of
similar
symptoms
from
Sweden.
There are
brief
and
sprightly
portraits
of contemporary Swiss;
but
one
is
not
a
little
surprised
to
find
a
professed
liberal embellishing
that
of
Giuseppe
Motta.
In
his brief
history
of
foreign affairs, francophilia
leads
M.
Soloveytchik
to
find
in
the
mission
civilisatrice
of
France
all
but
ample
justification
for
the
aggressions
of
Louis XIV
and
Napoleon.
When
it
is
later
asserted
that
after
1890
the
Swiss
succumbed
to a
"complete
cultural,
economic
and
even
moral
...
subservience
to
imperial
Germany,"
one
asks
if
the
perspectives
are not
overdrawn.
Despite
an
occasional
lapse
into
unrelieved
statistics
and
year-book
prose,
M.
Soloveytchik
gives
the
lay
reader
a
useful
handbook
of Swiss
affairs.
Waterloo
College,
Waterloo,
Ontario
F.
G.
W.
ADAMS
THROUGH
MALAN'S
AFRICA.
By
Robert
St.
John.
1954.
(Toronto:
Doubleday.
310pp.
$4.50.)
BEFORE
THE
AFRICAN
STORM.
By
John
Cookson.
1954.
(Tor-
onto:
McClelland
Stewart.
265pp.
$4.25.)
THE
HEART
OF
AFRICA.
By Alexander
Campbell.
1954.
(Tor-
onto:
McClelland
Stewart.
487pp.
$5.75.)
In
the past
century
the
white
man
has
introduced
two
great
dynamic forces
into Africa.
These
are
industrialization
and
a
theory
of
political
democracy.
Industrialization
is
destroying
the
traditional
pattern
of
tribal
life,
often
leaving
the
African
native
in a
spiritual
and
intellectual
vacuum.
At
the
same
time,
while
his
cultural
pivot
is
disin-
tegrating,
the
benefits
of
democracy,
which
he
hears
extolled
by
the
white
minority,
are
being
withheld
from
him
on
the
grounds
of
his
alleged
racial
inferiority.
This
is
the
crux of
the
present
African crisis.
The
reverberations
of
this
crisis have
brought
forth
a
plethora
of
books
on
this
subject
in
recent
years.
Leaving
aside
the
specialist
works
of
the
anthropologist
and
colonial
adminis-
trator,
we
still
find
ourselves
faced
with
a
host
of
what
might
be called
popular
books
on
Africa.
These
generally
fall
into
two
categories:
those
which
serve
as
a
well-balanced
introduction
for the
intelligent
layman and
others
which, while
they
may
entertain,
leave
the
reader
with
a
false
impression
of
the
continent's
problems.
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