International African Institute

L'Afrique en devenir: essai sur l'avenir de l'Afrique noire by Georges BalandierReview by: Lucy MairAfrica: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Apr., 1967), p. 230Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1158258 .

Accessed: 16/06/2014 14:54

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Cambridge University Press and International African Institute are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Africa: Journal of the International African Institute.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.115 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 14:54:19 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

on Southern Niger, though Urvoy, Rouch, and Mauny are cited frequently. However, con- siderable effort has been made to secure the scholarly foundations and administrative approval of the text; and if such official patronage rather obscures its value as an adequate historical record of many recent and several earlier events, while encouraging the inclusion of some trivia, such selectivity is perhaps inevitable in the chronicles of officialdom.

M. G. SMITH

L'Afrique en devenir: essai sur l'avenir de l'Afrique noire. Par GEORGES BALANDIER et autres, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France (Prospectives, 13, juin I966. Publ. du Centre d'litudes Prospectives). Pp. vii, 139. F. 9.

THE object of the ' Prospective ' series, which was launched some five years ago, is to con- sider the prerequisites for desired economic and social changes and the prospects of attaining them. This one complements a study of the relations between the West and the rest of the world by placing its emphasis on what Africa wants rather than on what others think it needs. It is based on the work of a study group which included leading Africans from French-speaking countries and French students of African problems. Since the African contribution was directed more to the expression of aspirations than to the calculation of probabilities it fell to Professor Balandier to extend the study into the latter field.

Most African leaders have warned their followers that the way of independence would not be easy, but' freedom and hard work ' is apt to mean merely that everyone should work harder at what he is already doing. M. Balandier emphasizes the hard fact that some of the new African states are better endowed, and at present in happier circumstances than others; one cannot lay down general rules for ' African' development, nor expect that all Africa should reach affluence at the same time. His objective prediction is that external ' aid ' will not redress the imbalance, since lenders like to see results, with the consequence that to him that hath is given.

In the political field M. Balandier remarks that few African states can maintain an effective apparatus of government, civil and military, from their own resources. For the weakest, independence can mean no more than the freedom to choose whose dependants they shall be. Some regimes could not stay in power without foreign arms; no more could their opponents, he adds. This results from the nature of things, not from any individual act of volition, and the situation is likely to last for a long time. Discussing African unity he discounts the pan-continental enthusiasm which assumes that Arabs and Africans must have common interests because they inhabit the same land mass, and remarks that with the exception of Mali the partially islamized states are zones of friction rather than bridges. Technical assistance, he concludes, still gives too little thought to the training of Africans to be their own technicians. LUCY MAIR

The Zambesian Past: Studies in Central African History. Ed. by E. STOKES and R. BROWN, Manchester University Press, I966. Pp. xxxv, 427. 5os.

The Zambesian Past is a collection of sixteen papers originally presented at the Seventeenth Conference of the then Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, Lusaka, in May I963. The editors chose the term ' Zambesia ' as a title of convenience to describe the area comprising modern Zambia, Malawi, and Rhodesia which forms the main focus of attention, although some recognition of the artificiality of colonial boundaries is demonstrated by the inclusion of chapters by Professor Cunnison on the Arabs in Kazembe and P. R. Warhurst on the Scramble in Gazaland (Mozambique). Chronologically, the volume covers a wide span from a discussion of Zimbabwe archaeology to African politics in Nyasaland in the I93os, but the pre-I880 period is the concern of only six out of the sixteen papers. With the exception

on Southern Niger, though Urvoy, Rouch, and Mauny are cited frequently. However, con- siderable effort has been made to secure the scholarly foundations and administrative approval of the text; and if such official patronage rather obscures its value as an adequate historical record of many recent and several earlier events, while encouraging the inclusion of some trivia, such selectivity is perhaps inevitable in the chronicles of officialdom.

M. G. SMITH

L'Afrique en devenir: essai sur l'avenir de l'Afrique noire. Par GEORGES BALANDIER et autres, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France (Prospectives, 13, juin I966. Publ. du Centre d'litudes Prospectives). Pp. vii, 139. F. 9.

THE object of the ' Prospective ' series, which was launched some five years ago, is to con- sider the prerequisites for desired economic and social changes and the prospects of attaining them. This one complements a study of the relations between the West and the rest of the world by placing its emphasis on what Africa wants rather than on what others think it needs. It is based on the work of a study group which included leading Africans from French-speaking countries and French students of African problems. Since the African contribution was directed more to the expression of aspirations than to the calculation of probabilities it fell to Professor Balandier to extend the study into the latter field.

Most African leaders have warned their followers that the way of independence would not be easy, but' freedom and hard work ' is apt to mean merely that everyone should work harder at what he is already doing. M. Balandier emphasizes the hard fact that some of the new African states are better endowed, and at present in happier circumstances than others; one cannot lay down general rules for ' African' development, nor expect that all Africa should reach affluence at the same time. His objective prediction is that external ' aid ' will not redress the imbalance, since lenders like to see results, with the consequence that to him that hath is given.

In the political field M. Balandier remarks that few African states can maintain an effective apparatus of government, civil and military, from their own resources. For the weakest, independence can mean no more than the freedom to choose whose dependants they shall be. Some regimes could not stay in power without foreign arms; no more could their opponents, he adds. This results from the nature of things, not from any individual act of volition, and the situation is likely to last for a long time. Discussing African unity he discounts the pan-continental enthusiasm which assumes that Arabs and Africans must have common interests because they inhabit the same land mass, and remarks that with the exception of Mali the partially islamized states are zones of friction rather than bridges. Technical assistance, he concludes, still gives too little thought to the training of Africans to be their own technicians. LUCY MAIR

The Zambesian Past: Studies in Central African History. Ed. by E. STOKES and R. BROWN, Manchester University Press, I966. Pp. xxxv, 427. 5os.

The Zambesian Past is a collection of sixteen papers originally presented at the Seventeenth Conference of the then Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, Lusaka, in May I963. The editors chose the term ' Zambesia ' as a title of convenience to describe the area comprising modern Zambia, Malawi, and Rhodesia which forms the main focus of attention, although some recognition of the artificiality of colonial boundaries is demonstrated by the inclusion of chapters by Professor Cunnison on the Arabs in Kazembe and P. R. Warhurst on the Scramble in Gazaland (Mozambique). Chronologically, the volume covers a wide span from a discussion of Zimbabwe archaeology to African politics in Nyasaland in the I93os, but the pre-I880 period is the concern of only six out of the sixteen papers. With the exception

on Southern Niger, though Urvoy, Rouch, and Mauny are cited frequently. However, con- siderable effort has been made to secure the scholarly foundations and administrative approval of the text; and if such official patronage rather obscures its value as an adequate historical record of many recent and several earlier events, while encouraging the inclusion of some trivia, such selectivity is perhaps inevitable in the chronicles of officialdom.

M. G. SMITH

L'Afrique en devenir: essai sur l'avenir de l'Afrique noire. Par GEORGES BALANDIER et autres, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France (Prospectives, 13, juin I966. Publ. du Centre d'litudes Prospectives). Pp. vii, 139. F. 9.

THE object of the ' Prospective ' series, which was launched some five years ago, is to con- sider the prerequisites for desired economic and social changes and the prospects of attaining them. This one complements a study of the relations between the West and the rest of the world by placing its emphasis on what Africa wants rather than on what others think it needs. It is based on the work of a study group which included leading Africans from French-speaking countries and French students of African problems. Since the African contribution was directed more to the expression of aspirations than to the calculation of probabilities it fell to Professor Balandier to extend the study into the latter field.

Most African leaders have warned their followers that the way of independence would not be easy, but' freedom and hard work ' is apt to mean merely that everyone should work harder at what he is already doing. M. Balandier emphasizes the hard fact that some of the new African states are better endowed, and at present in happier circumstances than others; one cannot lay down general rules for ' African' development, nor expect that all Africa should reach affluence at the same time. His objective prediction is that external ' aid ' will not redress the imbalance, since lenders like to see results, with the consequence that to him that hath is given.

In the political field M. Balandier remarks that few African states can maintain an effective apparatus of government, civil and military, from their own resources. For the weakest, independence can mean no more than the freedom to choose whose dependants they shall be. Some regimes could not stay in power without foreign arms; no more could their opponents, he adds. This results from the nature of things, not from any individual act of volition, and the situation is likely to last for a long time. Discussing African unity he discounts the pan-continental enthusiasm which assumes that Arabs and Africans must have common interests because they inhabit the same land mass, and remarks that with the exception of Mali the partially islamized states are zones of friction rather than bridges. Technical assistance, he concludes, still gives too little thought to the training of Africans to be their own technicians. LUCY MAIR

The Zambesian Past: Studies in Central African History. Ed. by E. STOKES and R. BROWN, Manchester University Press, I966. Pp. xxxv, 427. 5os.

The Zambesian Past is a collection of sixteen papers originally presented at the Seventeenth Conference of the then Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, Lusaka, in May I963. The editors chose the term ' Zambesia ' as a title of convenience to describe the area comprising modern Zambia, Malawi, and Rhodesia which forms the main focus of attention, although some recognition of the artificiality of colonial boundaries is demonstrated by the inclusion of chapters by Professor Cunnison on the Arabs in Kazembe and P. R. Warhurst on the Scramble in Gazaland (Mozambique). Chronologically, the volume covers a wide span from a discussion of Zimbabwe archaeology to African politics in Nyasaland in the I93os, but the pre-I880 period is the concern of only six out of the sixteen papers. With the exception

REVIEWS OF BOOKS REVIEWS OF BOOKS REVIEWS OF BOOKS 230 230 230

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.115 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 14:54:19 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions