84 BooIc Reviews
boardrooms of local companies that might go into joint ventures, and for those critics who would be
against selling out the nation.
Reviewed by 101m Stewart, Harare.
Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa 1880-1985, Patrick Manning. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1988 (xii, 215pp, £8.95 pbk, £25 hbk).
This book surveys French-speaking Africa from the southern border of Morocco (Mauritania) in the
north-west to Zaire on the northern borden of Zambia to the south-east - an area covering some 40
percent of the African continent. The importance of the subject is obvious - 17 nations with over 100
million people.
The book will be useful to students because themost-up-to-date surveys by Coquery- Vidrovitch are
in French and the books available in English (such as those of Brunnchwig and Hargreaves) are over
twenty years old. Having said this, however, the reviewer must point out that Manning's book is not
easy to follow for the uninitiated reader. No clear chronology emerges and the way in which the
individual French colonies were acquired is not made clear. The approach is thematic and the style
allusive and therefore requires not a little preexisting knowledge. One also wonders whether the French
language, 'Francophonie', does give the subject real coherence, as the Belgian colonies of Congo
(Zaire), Rwanda and Bunmdi had little history in common with the French Empire in Africa, whereas
Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia had close contacts and similarities.
Nevertheless some broad themes do stand out, particularly in contrastto the development of Englishspeaking
Africa, for example the French preference for dir~t rule rather than Britain's indirect
approach, and 'federations' ruled from Dakar and Brazzaville - successfully equalled in British Africa
only by white-settler South Africa. The French 'federations' have disappeared, of course, with the
granting of independence but great similarities (in law and government) and cohesion (in currency
management) remain, more so than the former British colonies share.
For such comparisons and ideas Manning's book is to be recommended.
Reviewed by R S Roberts, Dept of History, University ofZirnbabwe, Harare.