The growing volume of news from Africa calls for a genuine improvement in the average American’s basic knowledge of that vast continent whose present and future role in world affairs is of vital importance to the Free World. The intended purpose of the following listing is to provide some guidelines for an independent study by the non-expert.
There are several up-to-date world geography texts which devote two or three chapters to Africa; for example, Freeman and Morris, World Geography (McGraw, $7.95, 1958; accompanying study guide, $2.00). Three texts, all of British origin, deal extensively with the whole continent of Africa: L. D. Stamp’s Africa, A Study in Tropical Development (Wiley, $9.25, 1953) is comprehensive. Walter Fitzgerald’s Africa (Dutton, $6.75, 1957) is well organized and reasonably updated since its original appearance in 1934. A smaller, handbook-type volume is L. S. Suggate’s Africa ($3.00, 1957).
In addition to these continental surveys there are a number of worthwhile regional studies, the latest and most thorough of which is A Survey of North West Africa (Oxford, $5.60, 1959) edited by N. Barbour. This highly commendable work presents in detail the geography and history of the Sahara region plus the four political units of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libia. While far from the same caliber as the Barbour book, two British annuals, The Yearbook and Guide to East Africa and The Yearbook and Guide to Southern Africa (Wilson, $3.00 each) render unique informational service. Also noteworthy is The Africa Annual (Foreign Correspondents, Ltd., $3.00) which is without peer as the most complete published source of vital statistics on the whole continent. The only worthwhile American travel guide is C. R. Joy’s Africa: A Handbook for Travelers (Duell, $3.50).
Many of the individual African states are covered in scholarly studies of recent origin, the best being James Duffy’s Portuguese Africa (Harvard, $6.75, 1959) and F. D. Fage’s Ghana (Wisconsin, $3.00, 1959).
African adventure books of gun and camera safari or the tribal dances types are constantly emerging, but these usually fail to descend to such basics as today’s political, economic, or social themes. Among the better recent entries in this field, however, are Alan Moorehead’s No Room in The Ark (Harper, $4.00, 1959), A. Gatti’s Africa Is Adventure (Messner, $4.50, 1959); and L. VanDerPost’s The Lost World of the Kalahari (Morrow, $4.75, 1958), the Kalahari being the vast desert of South West Africa. In recent years the most popular Africa travel book has been John Gunther’s Inside Africa (Harper, $6.50, 1955) which has offered countless Americans a substantial start toward becoming respectably informed on Africa.
Some of the better popular periodicals are devoting increased attention to Africa, among the most useful examples appearing in Holiday and Atlantic Monthly, each of which devoted its April, 1959 issue to Africa. Also outstanding in this respect was the July, 1959 Current History, which was entirely given over to the “New States of Africa.” Brief but well written and to the point is John Scott’s “Africa Today,” the May-June 1959 issue (No. 135, 35¢) of the Foreign Policy Association’s Headline Series. Focus, the monthly information sheet ($1.00 per year) of the American Geographical Society, has devoted almost a score of its last fifty or sixty issues to Africa’s political units as well as to broader topics, such as “North Africa’s Arid Realm.”
The most thorough of the various studies on Afro-American relations is The American Assembly’s The United States and Africa (Columbia, $1.25, 1958). Africa Today (Johns Hopkins, $6.00, 1955) is a highly useful collection of essays, one of which, Admiral R. L. Conolly’s “Africa’s Strategic Importance,” would be of especial interest to Proceedings readers. A similar compilation is C. W. Stillman’s Africa in The Modern World (Chicago, $6.00, 1955). Chester Bowles’ Africa’s Challenge to America (California, 1956) is thought-provoking. Of outstanding value is the study Africa (GPO, 30¢) prepared by Northwestern University’s Program of African Studies for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Pamphlets, small charts, and other official handout materials are almost always available by writing to the Washington or New York official information agencies of the individual African states or governing powers; for example, British Information Service, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York.
Finally, everyone seeking useful information on Africa needs the following: a recent wall map of the National Geographic Society variety; a good atlas, such as J. E. Williams’s World Atlas (Prentice-Hall, $5.95, 1958); and that unique compilation, Webster’s Geographical Dictionary (Merriam, $8.50, 1959).