Israel shares the distinction, together with only a handful of other nations, of being a ‘newsworthy’ country. Even before the recent war, hardly a week passed without at least a reference to Israel in either the daily or periodical press. Various American, British, and European weeklies consistently carry articles on Israel. On a per capita basis, probably no other country receives as much world press attention as Israel. Yet, despite this profuseness of printed material, very few articles and fewer books present competent analyses of the Israeli polity and foreign policy.

The first third of the 1960's was marked by growing concern over the inadequacies of the international economic system and a series of ambitious initiatives for its reform. The Kennedy Round of negotiations conducted through G.A.T.T. (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs) was launched with the avowed aim of ending protective tariffs and related obstacles to world trade. Almost all governments, central banks, and international monetary organisations supported—in one form or another—international liquidity reform in order to break the artificial dependence of trade expansion on gold mining and on United States and United Kingdom payments deficits, and to replace these variables by a managed system, based on an international reserve unit. Both the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (O.E.C.D.) argued the case for expanded, longer- period, development assistance on easier terms and with fewer ties to purchase the exports of lender or donor countries. Spokesmen not only of developing but also of industrial economies appeared to endorse this line of argument. Regional economic integration among developing economies moved out of the realm of academic speculation and vague speeches and into the category of political-economic programmes for early implementation.

A Year has elapsed since the granting of independence to Basutoland and Bechuanaland and, on an academic level at least, there appears to be no slackening of interest in the problems besetting the new states of Lesotho and Botswana and the remaining territory of Swaziland which is due to receive independence in 1968. Each of the books considered here contributes in varying degree to our understanding of their prospects in an environment in which internal stresses combine with external dependence upon a powerful neighbour to limit the choices of their governments in many crucial areas of policy.

The endless debates about economic development, ends and means, often reach nightmare proportions for economists engaged in the art of manpower planning. One argument addresses itself to the question of whether or not education should be regarded, and treated in a policy sense, as an investment in human beings; economists support this approach, while educators tend to abhor it. Economists are also often attacked by non-educators for opposing the distribution of education to the maximum number of people as a welfare good.

Although the number of Africanists in Poland has never been large, a scholarly interest in Africa has long existed in this country. Among the scholars of the older generation, the most prominent were: L. Krzywicki, a sociologist with a wide interest in social change and development, who published several studies on the transition from traditional to modern societies, with special attention to Africa; J. Czekanowski, who was among the first explorers of Rwanda and other Interlacustrine kingdoms, publishing several extensive studies both in German and Polish; and B. Malinowski, who later established himself in Great Britain.

Two years after the centenary of Heinrich Barth's death on 25 November 1865, a big volume dedicated to him was published in Germany. Seven West German scholars, two East Germans, one Austrian, three British, and two French contributed to this book:— Heinrich Barth, ein Forscher in Afrika. Leben-Werk-Leistung Eine Sammlung von Beiträgen …, edited by Heinrich Schiffers (Wiesbaden, Steiner Verlag, 1967, pp. 540). A British centenary edition of Heinrich Barth's Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (London, Cass, 3 vols, 1965) actually appeared in the centenary year.

The Malagasy Academy is certainly the oldest learned society in the whole of French-speaking Africa, and in fact it is still original in the sense that there are few like it in the countries of the third world.

A new department has been established at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a joint project of the Institute of Asian and African Studies (formerly the Institute of Oriental Studies) and the Eliezer Kaplan School of Economics and Social Sciences.

The aims of I.E.D.E.S. (the Institute for the Study of Economic and Social Development), which is directed by Professor Francois Perroux and forms a part of the Collège de France, are both to teach and to make comparative studies of the economic, social, cultural, administrative, and other problems arising from the present situation and the potential development of the so- called under-developed and developing countries. It is the only really important university institution in France whose aims are so defined. During the past io years it has already undertaken and completed a considerable number of activities, which are summarised below under three main headings. These activities will be continued in our study of the different countries of Africa.

C.A.S.H.A., the African Centre for Applied Humanities, was founded in 1961, with the assistance of the general planning commissariat of the French Republic, as a non-profit-making organisation. Its aims are to undertake and to promote, chiefly in Africa, inter-disciplinary research into economic and social development and the related policies for action, building up a research machinery capable of responding to the specific problems of the developing countries. Its operations are safeguarded by agreements with both public and private bodies, having regard to the objects of the Association and its appropriate tasks.

Simon Fraser University, located in Burnaby, seven miles from the centre of Vancouver, was established under the 1963 Universities Act of British Columbia, and received its first under-graduate and graduate students in September 1965, into the faculties of arts, science, and education.

The Ministers of Economic Affairs of the four Maghreb states, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, met for the first time in October 1964 at Tunis to examine all questions relating to economic co-operation in the Maghreb. They agreed, on this occasion, on the aim of a unified economy for all the Maghreb states, and on the need to work out a special system for economic co-operation and commercial relations.

This seminar, sponsored and organised jointly by the International Labour Organisation and the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, was convened on the recommendation of the Fourth Conference of African Statisticians, November 1965, and was held in two stages; the first stage, in Dakar, was for participants from French-speaking African countries, and the second, in Addis Ababa, for participants from English-speaking African countries.

The chief purpose of the West Africa Committee, established in May 1956, is to aid and stimulate the economic development of the English-speaking West African countries—Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Gambia—by firms, companies, and individuals from outside West Africa, to the mutual economic advantage of these countries and of the members of the Committee.

In 1940 the Fabian Society (founded in 1883) set up a Colonial Bureau, whose aim was to plan—and to agitate—for the liberation of Britain's colonies. Under the very able control of Dr Rita Hinden, the Bureau established a library and a press-cutting service, and became a recognised source of information and propaganda about the colonies. A battery of parliamentary questions was maintained, and many debates on colonial issues were based, on the Labour Party side, on material provided by Rita Hinden and her colleagues, and their contacts throughout Britain and the world.

When Tanzania and Uganda had gained their independence and Kenya was about to gain hers, it was clear that a large number of Africans would be finding themselves placed in positions of considerable responsibility in the public service before they had had the opportunity to acquire any substantial amount of experience in the management of public affairs. Among those who played a prominent part in considering how this problem could best be tackled was the Secretary-General of the East African Common Services Organisation. A. L. Adu had previously served as Commissioner for Africanisation in Ghana and had later been head of the civil service in that country, and he had considerable experience of similar problems in West Africa. He had also been one of the first Africans to attend the Imperial Defence College in the U.K., and had been impressed by the contribution which training of the staff college type could make to the development of administrative skills in those whose experience at the lower levels of the administrative ladder had necessarily been limited.

A new policy of decentralisation of activities is leading to a substantial strengthening of the field structure of the I.L.O. in Africa. The policy has been formulated in the light of the growing trend towards regional and subregional economic and social development, and the increase in I.L.O technical co-operation activity around the world. I.L.O.'s work has in fact shown its most noticeable expansion in the African region; in terms of expenditure, the region now claims the largest allocation—over 35 per cent, as against 27 per cent in 1952—of the Organisation's total resources for technical co-operation.

The presence of large numbers of refugees in independent African countries is one of their gravest problems. These refugees do not normally come into the countries of asylum in manageable numbers, but enter in tens of thousands, usually totally destitute, into regions poor in communications and social services—even for the local inhabitants—and with little if anything in the way of surplus local food supplies. The logistics and finance of providing immediate succour have presented enormous difficulties, intensified by the need to remove them as far as possible from the frontiers of their countries of origin, in order to avoid political tensions between the countries concerned and to observe the Organisation for African Unity's recommendation of 1964. Their settlement, among people who are only just self-sufficient in subsistence foods, places great strains on the technical resources of countries struggling for a decent standard of living for their own inhabitants, and deeply committed to their own development plans.

The full title of this seminar, sponsored by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, was ‘The Use of Correspondence Instruction in Adult Education: means, methods, and possibilities’. The 21 participants came from ministries of education, universities, and other official institutions in Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, and Zambia, and from the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa; during the initial phase, U.N.E.S.C.O. was represented by an observer. The seminar was led by a directorate of three: Miss Renee Erdos from Australia, author of a U.N.E.S.C.O. source book on correspondence education, Roy Prosser, Edinburgh University, formerly director of extramural studies, Nairobi, and Dr Lars-Olof Edström, educational adviser, Swedish International Development Authority.

This, the broadest and most thoroughgoing confrontation to date of African and Scandinavian writers, took place at the inter-Scandinavian cultural centre near Stockholm. More than 20 African writers, including representatives from North Africa, Ethiopia, ‘Black Africa’, and South Africa (refugees) took part in the conference, among them some outstanding personalities: Albert Memmi, Wole Soyinka, Tchicaya U'Thamsi, George AwoonorWilliams, James Ngugi, and Ezekiel Mphahlele, to mention only a few. A similar number of writers from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway took part; tours and social arrangements made it possible for the African writers to meet a further selection of Scandinavian writers and artists and to become acquainted with local scenery and institutions. The initiative for the conference was taken by the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, the Swedish Institute for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, and the Swedish Council for Overseas Information.