My main criticism on this book is that while
it gives us a comprehensive   picture of urbanization   in
West Africa and the problems that followed, it does
pot give us an alternative   model of urbanization.
                                            C. Moremi
African Social Studies (A Radical Reader)
Edited by Peter C.W. Gutkind and Peter Waterman -481 pp.
Heinemann Education Books . London, 1977 . £2.90
Gutkind and Waterman have produced the sort of text which
many yeung Africanists have for a long time been waiting
 for. It is a pioneer work with an announced broad le~t rad-
 ical orientation, and boasts of a wide collection Df sources
 which lend the work a very rich and informative character.
 The text is divided into eight parts: Methodology, Histor-
 ical stages and Transition, The Political Economy of Colon-
 ialism and Nee-Colonialism,   Social structure - the Process
 of Class ~rmation,   Ideology, Politics and a Bibliographical
 Guide. Under these rubrics extracts for selected Fapers
 have been collected in a well-arranged   manner. The study
 concentrates almost exclusively on Africa south of the Sa-
 hara. Also Southern Africa comes in vaguely for an altoget-
 her rather spare treatment. Another weakness in the collect-
 ion is that some of the papers are too brief, often the
 reader's appetite is not sufficiently satisfied, he is sti-
 mulated but effectively tantalized. All the same the authors
 by producing this work have given leftist approaches to
 social sciences of Africa a major shot in the arm. Students
 have now a basic refreshing radical textbuok of readings to
 grow on. The appearance of this book also lends institution-
 alised respectability  to radical views, a psotion which some
 of us have long awaited, but now obviously this has started
 in earnest.
                                                    K. Prah
                         148