The Congo. By RANDALL FEGLEY. (World Bibliographical Series, Vol. 162.) Oxford, Santa Barbara and Denver: Clio Press, 1993. Pp. 1 + 168. £30 (ISBN 1-85109-199-8).

Abstract

Randall Fegley's bibliographical compilation is clearly not among the best of the World Bibliographical Series. The objective of the collection is to present a solid guide of the country to the non-specialist, and compared to other volumes in the series, Fegley's work lacks polish and perspective. The volume is marked by spelling errors. Accents in French names and titles are most often ignored. Important authors' names are misspelled: Gilles Sautter becomes ‘Giles’ in the text and ‘Sautte’ in the index; Jean-Claude Willame becomes ‘Willaure’. Ironically, the listing of the latter's book, Patrimonialism and Change in the Congo, a political science essay on Zaïre, illustrates the mistake Fegley denounces in his preface (p. xiii) : most English-speaking readers confuse Zaïre and Congo. The well-known collection of essays edited by P. Gifford and W. R. Louis is wrongly entitled by Fegley as Transfers of Power in Africa, and presented as a single volume (p. 68). Some titles are also poorly categorized, like René Gauze's The Politics of Congo-Brazzaville. Gauze's 150-page text is devoted to Congolese politics during the colonial period, with a 50-page supplement on the decade 1962 to 1972 written by Virginia Thompson and Richard Adloff. It is nevertheless classified only under ‘Post-colonial politics’ (p. 71). Jan Vansina's Paths in the Rainforest, best classified in pre-colonial history, is listed just once under ‘Politics, General’.