The rising demand for out-of-print Africana, and indeed all rare and scholarly books, is stimulating unprecedented interest and reprinting activity among publishers. With programs and courses springing up all over the United States, Africa, and other parts of the world, librarians and scholars have found themselves in fierce competition for scarce materials on African subjects. Simultaneously, booksellers, at pains to meet this tremendous increase in demand, have found the supply of Africana dwindling and near depletion. However, because of the proliferation of publishing houses specializing in scholarly reprints, the solution to this problem seems to be close at hand.

If one may judge by the number of works which have already appeared and by those known to be in the planning stages, it would not seem very long before nearly all the most important works are republished. The following does not purport to be an exhaustive listing, but will serve to indicate the very large number of reprints recently published or forthcoming.

This is the first of a series of progress reports on African archaeology in the United States, which will appear at regular intervals in the African Studies Bulletin.

J. Desmond Clark, University of California, Berkeley, has completed work on the first volume of the Kalambo Falls Prehistoric Site monograph, which deals with geology, palaeoecology, and the detailed stratigraphy. It will be published by the Cambridge University Press. The Atlas of African Prehistory has now been published as has The Background to Evolution in Africa, edited jointly with W. W. Bishop. Interim reports on research work in the Malawi Rift and a monograph on the paleoanthropology of Northern Lunda have gone to press, while work is proceeding on a new edition of the Prehistory of Southern Africa. The Twin Rivers Middle Stone Age aggregates have been analyzed by graduate students under Professor Clark's supervision, and the first of two films on stone flaking and the manufacture of tools by percussion and pressure has been completed. The second will be ready in 1968. The year has been devoted to publication, analysis of data, and teaching.

Glen Cole, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, received a research grant from the National Science Foundation for an investigation of Upper Pleistocene industries of East Africa. This is to permit analysis of a considerable amount of data accumulated during a period of two and a half years in Uganda, mostly from the Nsongezi area, pertaining to Acheulian, Sangoan, and so-called Middle Stone Age industries.

Because of their location at the head of the Mozambique Channel, the four islands of the Comoro Archipelago, Anjouan (or Johanna), Grande Comore (Great Comoro), Mohilla (Mohély), and Mayotte (Mayotta) have been the subject of a considerable body of literature. European ships in need of supplies for their voyages to the east, or along the eastern coast of Africa, stopped at one or all of the islands, and many travelers and ship captains published their observations on the archipelago. Literature dealing with the period before 1800 has been arranged into collections cited below, but the numerous accounts of nineteenth-century travelers ar e scattered in periodicals and books, and the major bibliographical works on the islands, by and large, cover die same ground. This essay brings together accounts of the Comoro Islands arranged in a geographical and historical, although not necessarily chronological, context; and secondary material particularly related to the events and people is also described.

This is a two-year survey of bibliographical work completed in the Republic of South Africa. Recent developments in current and retrospective national bibliography are outlined. The South African National Bibliography has been mechanised and good progress has been made with the retrospective volume for 1926-1958. Attention is drawn to the State Library's work on the documentation of banned books. Catalogues of important collections completed are briefly described, and recent developments in the field of periodical lists and indexes are outlined. Special attention is paid in the review to Africana indexes and bibliographies. The author concludes that despite lacunae which remain to be filled, the bibliographical scene in South Africa is satisfactory and full of promise.

This review, like its forerunner covers a two-year period and is based on information derived from a questionnaire sent to the major libraries of South Africa. The interim period has also been covered to some extent by a number of informal bibliographical progress reports published in the South African Library Association Newsletter.

Chronicles of the African Studies Association and of the development of African studies programs give clear evidence that both have achieved substantive progress after a rather late arrival on the academic scene. At the same time, however, mapping of both programs and Africaniste equally clearly indicates their quite restricted distribution. Consequently the impact of African studies programs and scholarship on our academies and on the wider society of which we are a part has been far more limited than is desirable.

The distribution of Africanists is largely related to the location and size of African studies programs, and the distribution of both of these in turn is influenced by population distribution in the United States. Although large parts of the United States are devoid of African studies programs and of dedicated African scholars, they certainly are not unpopulated. Thus, awareness and understanding of African phenomena bypass large portions of the student and general population, and at least some of the responsibility for ignorance about Africa results from the spotty distribution of programs and scholars. It may be argued that little or nothing can be done to remedy this maldistribution of programs and scholars, but such an argument can logically be offered only after an attempt has been made.

Under the auspices of the United States Department of State, The Ford Foundation, Georgetown University, and the African-American Institute, more than 75 scholars and other specialists convened at the Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D. C., from August 17 to 21, 1964, to exchange views on problems of political and social change in francophonic Africa. The program was organized and directed by Dr. William H. Lewis of Georgetown University. The first such conclave ever to be convened in the United States, it brought together more than 500 scholars, government officials, and diplomatic personnel from Africa, Western Europe, Canada, and the United States.

The basic purpose of this special program was to stimulate greater interest among American scholars and graduate students in the unfolding problems of francophonic Africa -- extending from Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia in the north to the Congo (Leopoldville) and the Malagasy Republic to the south. To this end, the sponsors established a four-week graduate Institute which preceded the Congress. Conducted at Georgetown University, the Institute brought together a faculty of leading African and American scholars, as well as a student body comprising Africans, Europeans, and Americans. The Institute offered a program of instruction in African history, problems of economic development, parameters of social change, West African politics, and nationalism in North and sub-Saharan Africa.

The Committee for the year consisted of seven members: J. D. Clark, Chairman; Glen H. Cole; Brian M. Fagan; W. Creighton Gabel; F. Clark Howell; Glynn L. Isaac; and Frank Willett. On their taking up appointments in the United States, it was with pleasure that we welcomed, in January, Messrs. Fagan and Willett to the small group of archaeologists actively engaged on research in Africa. The two retiring members -- J. D. Clark and F. Clark Howell -- will be replaced on the Committee by C. M. Keller; W. Creighton Gabel has been appointed chairman for 1967-1968.

During the past year the Committee has concerned itself with (1) collecting and regularly disseminating information on current research and teaching and on the interest generally in African archaeology in America; (2) promoting discussion on general developments and trends in African archaeology; (3) promoting urgent research projects in connection with dam construction; and (4) training and liaison. The results under each of these heads are described below.

In order to discover the extent and nature of later archaeological (post “neolithic”) research presently in progress, a circular was distributed to a number of individuals both in Africa and in the United States. The response was excellent and resulted in valuable summaries of current work together with suggestions for future work. Most of the research is being done by local nationals and expeditions in Africa and, thanks to the regular meetings of the Pan-African Congress on Prehistory and Quaternary Studies, the majority are known to each other and are in regular communication. This circular supplements that previously distributed to individuals and institutions in this country, and its results have been mimeographed and circulated by the University of Illinois at Urbana.

The study of Africa south of the Sahara in American secondary schools has traditionally been most conspicuous by its absence. In fact, the secondary-school social studies curriculum, oriented as it has always been to the study of western civilization, has rarely allowed for the study of any nonwestern region or culture, least of all that of the “Dark Continent.” Now, however, this situation is changing, and changing rapidly. Considerable efforts are being made today to introduce the study of the Non-West into the curricula of many secondary schools. And, for a variety of reasons, an increasing number of schools are making special efforts to include Africa south of the Sahara in this study.

These efforts, however, are proving a difficult, if not insurmountable, challenge for most teachers and curriculum builders. Few, indeed, are the social studies teachers and supervisors with the academic training or extended living experience in the lands below the Sahara required to provide the insights upon which a worthwhile study of this region can be structured. Most schools do not have ready access to the advice of Africaniste on this subject. Even worthwhile printed guidelines for designing a study of this region are sorely lacking; with the exception of Leonard Kenworthy's Studying Africa in Elementary and Secondary Schools (10), there is not a single book, pamphlet, handbook, or curriculum guide to which teachers may profitably turn for help.

Some of the most accessible sources for African maps are the new atlases which have been published since World War II. If we interpret the term “atlas” loosely so as to include any assemblage of maps which can be placed on a book shelf, the range of subject materials covered is surprisingly large -- from agriculture to zoogeography. But despite the wealth of data which is presented in convenient map form, it is difficult to obtain information about atlases and their contents. The purpose of this article is to provide a guide to the kinds of information which is available, and a list of atlases and other publications with African maps which have appeared since 1945.

The analysis is based mainly upon atlases examined at the Map Division in the Library of Congress, at the American Geographical Society in New York, and at the University of California, Los Angeles. A few additional atlases were obtained through inter-library loan. Mrs. Clara Egli LeGear, of the Map Division, Library of Congress, provided especially helpful bibliographic aid at the early stages of the survey. This article is a part of a research project supported by the African Studies Center at U. C. L. A. More extension listings of African maps and atlases are in preparation; the authors would therefore welcome comments upon errors or omissions which may be noted in the article.

The formulation of valid generalizations about the climate for research in the social sciences and humanities in eastern Africa is a perplexing task. When one thinks one has reached a useful generalization, one is likely to be confronted with conflicting evidence. Moreover, changes are occurring with increasing frequency. In Zambia, for example, certain kinds of research especially important for political scientists were banned in July, 1967. Two main conclusions may nonetheless be drawn from my 175 interviews in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Uganda, Ethiopia, and the United Kingdom on behalf of the Research Liaison Committee of the African Studies Association.

It was encouraging to find many informants, both African and expatriate and in both government and academic circles, who emphasized the need for more research, especially for studies geared at least in part to help African governments in their economic, social, and educational development planning. Foreign scholars who comply with the established research procedures and behave with tact and common sense are still welcome throughout the area. However, this optimistic judgment must be qualified by a less favorable conclusion. The evidence indicates that the research climate is deteriorating in certain respects. In particular, the new clearance procedures, which often cause months of uneconomic delay, will probably not only become somewhat more restrictive in countries that already have them, but will probably be adopted in other countries as well.