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.

In late 1966 and early 1967 this writer spent four months in Angola doing research into the development of education there during the period 1878-1914. The following report is meant to give an indication of the contents of the archives there and the procedure for gaining access to them. It supplements the information available in C. R. Boxer's Portuguese Society in the Tropics (Madison, 1965), pp. 220-224.

There are indications that historians will encounter less difficulty than scholars of other disciplines in acquiring visas for Angola. Though such visas may be obtained in the United States, they are more easily acquired directly from the Portuguese International Police (PIDE) in Lisbon. While in Lisbon it would be helpful to make contact with some of the professors at the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Política Ultramarina (Rua da Junqueira, 86). Besides providing information about any current regulations and research, they will no doubt provide letters of introduction which may prove invaluable in Angola.

The best source for historical information in Angola is the Angola Historical Archive (AHA), located in the Museum of Luanda. Permission to use it is granted by the director of the Instituto de Investigaçao Científica de Angola (IICA) located in the University (Estudos Gerais) building. The IICA, in charge of most research in the province, has been cooperative with properly identified foreign scholars.

Janheinz Jahn's Bibliography is the most useful reference work that bibliographers of African literature have yet produced. One may wish to quarrel with Jahn about his definition of “neo-African literature” or about some of the material he has chosen to include (e.g., unpublished manuscripts, sermons, travel books, political works, monographs) as well as some he has chosen to exclude (e.g., literary works by white African writers, collections of folklore), but one must applaud his thorough documentation and multilingual approach. No other bibliography of African literature has been so comprehensive and so accurate.

However, Jahn himself is aware that “there is no bibliography without gaps,” and he has invited others to help him “fill in these gaps and correct errors” (Jann, p. ix). It is hoped that the following list of additions and corrections will prove useful not only to Jahn but also to librarians, literary scholars, and other bibliographers. It is not to be taken as a complete list, for I have had neither the time nor the resources to check all of Jahn's entries or to search in more than a few libraries for missing titles. Of necessity my emphasis has been placed on materials written in European languages. I would encourage those who are aware of further errors and omissions to publish similar lists so that a more definitive bibliography of African literature can be prepared.

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.

Russia's interest in Africa can be traced back to the fifteenth century. Not until the eighteenth century, however, does Russian interest become significant and important, especially through the writings of M. G. Kokovtsev on Tunisia and Algeria. Although these works seemed to be based largely on Kokovtsev's personal experiences in these areas, more formal academic efforts emerged also during this era. In 1790-1791, the Russian Academy of Sciences published The Comparative Dictionary of World Languages. This publication contained information mostly on the North African languages of Arabic, Coptic, Berber, and Fulbe, and some others of the western Sudan. Under the Czarist regime, in the nineteenth century, works by Russian travelers and ethnological and biological studies by scientists appeared. Likewise linguistic studies continued apace through scholarly interest in the ancient Ethiopian language, Geez. Thus, the thrust of systematic scholarship on Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries centered on linguistics.

The triumph of the Bolsheviks, in 1917 and subsequently, greatly altered the thrust of scholarship about and interest in Africa. It is the purpose of this paper, therefore, to examine the institutional and disciplinary efforts of the Soviets to understand and interpret Africa in the context of their established ideology. Emphasis has been placed on the institutions of higher education involved in African studies and the types of concern each has for the continent, especially after World War II.

Teaching about Africa south of the Sahara in American secondary schools is often severely limited or ignored altogether because most teachers believe there is an inadequate number of instructional materials available for use in the classroom. Fortunately, this belief is erroneous.

Project Africa, a U.S.O.E. -funded social studies curriculum development center at The Ohio State University, has recently completed an examination of commercially prepared materials currently available for instructional use at the secondary level. In so doing, the Project has located and identified a number of up-to-date, well-structured and generally accurate materials which have the potential for easy adaptation to virtually any type of study about this region as well as to any teaching style.

Hans Cory, 1888-1962, in his years as Tanganyika government sociologist, produced a collection of papers and monographs in the general field of political anthropology that rank as an important primary research source concerning that nation. The documentation, as do Cory's published writings, reflect the diverse interests of the author and the many sides of his character. The son of a Viennese musical family, his early interests were in African songs and dances, in composing Swahili poetry, and in collecting African drawings and figurines. Largely self-taught in the field of social anthropology, he had an abiding interest in ceremonies and rites, in the composition of secret societies, and in the use of plant medicines for religious and magical purposes. As an official he advised the government on a myriad of social problems. Outbreaks of murder, venereal disease, cattle theft, or armed revolt often brought administrative requests that he investigate the problem in depth and make policy recommendations.

The composition of the Cory collection, which is housed at the University College Library, Dar es Salaam, is predominantly typewritten papers, interviews, observations, and correspondence. Some of the field notes are handwritten, and a few papers are in German. There are also important subfiles of plant samples, drawings, paintings, and song texts. Cory's own bibliographical collection annotates and cross-indexes other writings by ethnic group, region, and individual author. The material falls into seven general categories: (1) local government, including native administration, constitution, and reform; (2) agricultural economics and land tenure; (3) magic, religion, secret societies, and related medical practices; (4) arts and crafts; (5) ethnography and tribal history; (6) customary law; and (7) language. The regional foci of much of the work are on the ethnic groups around Lake Victoria, particularly the Sukuma, Haya, Zinza, Kerewe, and Kuria. The peoples of central and western Tanzania, the Nyamwezi, Gogo, Nyaturu-Rimi, Ha, and Fipa, are represented in the collection, and some data exist on the eastern and coastal ethnic groups, particularly the Pare, Luguru, Zaramo, and Sambaa. Aside from a few monographs dealing with the Ngoni and Hehe, most ethnic groups of the southern regions of the country are not treated.

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 following is a list of all known theses on African subjects accepted by Howard University up to and including June 1968. The earliest is dated 1936. The main sources of information were Howard University Library, whose lists are incomplete, and individual departments, most of which have inadequate records. There may, therefore, be omissions and inaccuracies. The arrangement here follows as closely as possible that in United States and Canadian Publications on Africa in 1965, Hoover Institution, Bibliographical Series, XXXIV, Stanford University, 1967. Theses are listed in alphabetical order by country, and, under each country, in alphabetical order of the writers'names.

It is hoped that other African Studies Centers will follow the lead of this article and make available lists of theses produced by their graduate students.

The Archives-Libraries Committee of the African Studies Association, in accordance with tradition, held its annual meeting in New York prior to the annual meeting of the Association, on November 1, 1967. This report reviews some of the most important points discussed at that meeting, and attempts to assess some of the achievements of the year 1967.

The Committee continues to enjoy a particularly happy relationship with the African Section of the Library of Congress. Dr. Julian W. Witherell, the present Head, was on tour in Africa in November, so that the Acting Head, Dr. Samir M. Zoghby, submitted a detailed report to the Committee in his place. Since the African Section of the Library of Congress was established as the result of representations made by the A.S.A., it seems appropriate to mention, and so to bring to the attention of the Board in this way, some of the most significant developments in the Section.

The program of compiling and publishing guides to official publications of African countries is being continued. Volumes dealing with French-speaking West Africa, and the overseas provinces of Portugal in Africa will be published very shortly. A similar volume for Ghana is in preparation, and plans are being formulated to provide guides to the official publications of the Congo, Liberia, Ethiopia, the former High Commission territories, and Spanish Africa. It is hoped in time to prepare a special volume dealing with United States official publications concerning Africa.

The literature and documentation relating to the study of colonial Malawi (formerly Nyasaland) is quite considerable, and is increasingly being augmented by the annual output of monographs and articles, by the continuous unearthing of private collections and papers, and by governmental archival records gradually becoming available for public inspection. The purpose of this essay is to provide a guide to some of the more important works and material concerning selected aspects of Malawi's political history during the colonial period, presenting the literature in terms of the comparative analysis of political change in colonial Africa. Research work in progress is also cited, and some of the various gaps that require to be filled are mentioned.

The study of political and social change in colonial Malawi must take into account both the indigenous society and the external forces that have stimulated change, as well as the actual process of development. It is therefore necessary to have, first, some understanding of those features of the traditional environment and historical setting of precolonial Malawi which have a bearing on subsequent developments. Two useful discussions of the patterns of intertribal relations before colonization are offered by M. G. MARWICK (1963) and J. G. PIKE (1965). CLYDE MITCHELL (1960) provides a good general sketch of the African peoples and cultures, while another brief account of the tribal background appears in MARY TEW (1950). More detailed ethnographical studies relating to specific tribal groups are contained in the writings of J. CLYDE MITCHELL (1956), MARGARET READ (1956), J. M. SCHOFFELEERS (1966), J. VAN VELSEN (1964), and GODFREY WILSON (1939). These last five works also provide brief discussions of intertribal relations, the slave trade, and the early contacts of European explorers and missionaries with the African peoples. Two further important treatments of early race relations in Central Africa are the industrious volumes of A. J. HANNA (1956) and H. ALAN C. CAIRNS (1965), which are based on a vast variety of well known and obscure published sources. But, in the absence of African-derived records the story remains European centered, although the collection and assessment of African oral tradition should do much to redress the balance. For a critical analysis of Dr. Hanna's approach and interpretations, including a wealth of further material and insight, see the fine long essay by GEORGE SHEPPERSON (1958).

This bibliography is the first attempt to establish a comprehensive listing of the various types of documents which the Liberian government has published. That it is not complete, goes without saying. Only time and further discoveries will make it so. In addition, certain of the gaps which occur are due to the nature of some of the material. Some parts of the series were never duplicated for mass distribution; rather, they remain in manuscript form in the Liberian government archives.

In this bibliography I have limited listings to printed and duplicated materials. I have attempted to follow the Library of Congress form of cataloging where applicable. Where government agencies, although maintaining the same functions, have changed names, the cross references are given. Finally, a notation is given when a specific document is available at a public library.

Students interested in the history of Liberia have been hampered by the dearth of serious studies on Africa's first republic. With few noteworthy exceptions, published works on Liberia can be grouped into two rather broad categories. The first consists of works which tend to be too journalistic in concept and execution to satisfy the demands of serious scholarship. The second includes a variety of memoir-like collections of reminiscences and observations recorded by individuals stationed at one time or another in Liberia while engaged in educational, missionary, or developmental programs. Much of the published material in both categories is useful, and indeed quite valuable, for it provides a good deal of information not readily found elsewhere. Yet, while informative, these books do not constitute a body of scholarly work which the serious student of West Africa would wish to have available.

One work which must have a place on the relatively brief list of trust-worthy books of reference relating to Liberia is the exhaustive compilation of basic documents prepared by the distinguished international jurist, C. H. Huberich. Paradoxically, it appears that it was this important work which discouraged many historians from searching further for basic source materials, for Huberich noted that most official Liberian documents were destroyed during a violent storm in Monrovia. Writers on Liberian affairs who accepted Huberich's statement as the final word on the subject seem not to have attempted to utilize unpublished Liberian government papers in their research. Even those researchers who have, in recent years, had sufficient interest to probe into this alleged disappearance of the Liberian archives, or who were desirous of determining the extent of archival materials which might have survived the disaster, were undoubtedly discouraged by ambiguous replies from Monrovia in response to their inquiries.

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.

American scholars doing research in African literature sometimes have trouble locating the books they need. It is easy enough to get one's hands on African literary works published in England or America, but how does one get hold of material published in Africa -- e.g., Onitsha market chapbooks, early Lovedale or Morija press publications, or works in vernacular languages published by literature bureaus and small mission presses? Fortunately, for the older titles once can search through several published library catalogs -- Library of Congress (1942-1952), UCLA (1963), Berkeley (1963), the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library (1962), the African collection in the Moorland Foundation at Howard University (1958), Northwestern University's African collection (1962) -- and for the newer titles one can consult the National Union Catalog or the Joint Acquisitions List of Africana issued since 1961 by the Northwestern University Library. However, because these reference works do not list the older titles which libraries have acquired in recent years, one can never be certain that a particular African literary work is unavailable in the United States.

In the summer 1963 issue of Africana Newsletter (pp. 38–39), I reported on the then sad state of public records in the Gambia. Since that time the Gambian government has acted to preserve and catalogue the materials which prior to independence had been so carelessly handled. This reconstruction was made possible by a substantial gift by Nigeria on the occasion of independence. With these funds a trained Library Records Officer, J. M. Smyth, was brought from the Colonial Office to Gambia. From November 1965 to February 1966 he planned and did the preliminary work necessary for a functioning archive. Before he left Gambia the bulk of collecting, sorting, and cataloguing had been done and the framework for future growth had been created (see Smyth’s Report, Sessional no. 10, 1966).

The mission was designed in part as a follow-up and in part as a complement to Professor Philip D. Curtin's research liaison visit to western Africa in 1965 on behalf of the Association. Senegal, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Tchad, and Cameroun were revisited. The previously unvisited Central African Republic, Dahomey, Niger, and Upper Volta were added to the itinerary. Difficulties in flight scheduling and unexpected delays during the trip ruled out the planned visits to Gabon and Togo.

The goals of the mission were as follows: (1) to establish or renew contacts with universities, research institutes, appropriate government authorities, African and expatriate researchers, and American scholars currently engaged in research in Africa; (2) to make known the existence of the Research Liaison Committee (and sometimes, as it turned out, of the ASA as well) as a two-way clearing house for Africanist research information; (3) to establish more regular means of exchanging information with institutions in Africa on current and planned research, so as to make possible some informal coordination of research plans among scholars; (4) to determine the existing formal procedures (if any) for researchers from abroad; and (5) to convey back to the Africanist community in the United States some of the feelings, attitudes, and suggestions from these countries.