Political, social, and economic development take place in space as well as time, but all too often they are written about and studied as though they existed at a point, which, it will be recalled, has position and no magnitude. In a sense, all social scientists are historians, and use the temporal dimension as a framework within which to examine the political, social, and economic behaviour of men. But few feel comfortable trying on the geographer's spatial shoes, and, beyond an occasional location map, hesitate to examine the developments in the dimension that is his particular concern. Part of the trouble, of course, is that the map imposes a stricter discipline upon us than we care to admit: to map anything beyond the merely trivial we have to measure it, while fuzzy but intuitively valid ideas such as economic development, political power, and social integration make us coy, or evoke surprisingly emotional responses that such things are incapable of being measured in any meaningful fashion. But, whether we like it or not, developments of all kinds do take place in space; what, then, can the geographer, with his spatial perspective, contribute to our knowledge of these things?

Those interested in the progress of African socialism will welcome the recent decision of the Parti démocratique de Guinée (P.D.G.) to turn the official party organ, Horoya, into a daily newspaper instead of a weekly. This enables Africanists outside the Republic of Guinea to make a closer study of party activities and the evolution of party doctrine. The Government printing press, Imprimerie Patrice Lumumba, began the first daily issues in March 1964.

This conference was sponsored by the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (founded in 1960 after the Sharpeville massacre) and the convenor was Ronald Segal, now editor of the Penguin African Library. What was intended initially as a small expert conference snowballed suddenly, and in the end 30 official government delegations (mainly from African, Asian, and socialist countries) and over 200 delegates attended. The conference chairman was Mongi Slim, the Foreign Minister of Tunisia, and others present included Diallo Telli, the chairman of the U.N. Special Committee on Apartheid, Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien, the vice-chancellor of the University of Ghana, and Tom Mboya and Mainza Chona, the Ministers ofJustice of Kenya and Northern Rhodesia.

For a contemporary observer of African affairs, the year 1960 is a convenient date of departure. A large number of new nations appeared on the scene with a bang. The economist, political scientist, and sociologist have hardly begun to evaluate and examine the consequences of this transformation. A significant fact has often escaped attention. Each independent country as it emerged from the darkness of colonialism began by accepting economic planning as an instrument of policy. As the development plans were being drafted, almost simultaneously new investment laws were debated and enacted.

I was attending a conference sponsored by the University of East Africa in Dar es Salaam when the sad news of the death of Professor Potekhin came through. The world community of Africanists has suffered a great loss. The people of Africa have lost one of their most devoted friends.

Ivan Potekhin was born of a family of farmers in a small village in Siberia in 1903. No one can say what the destiny of this young Siberian peasant would have been had it not been for the Socialist revolution in Russia in October 1917. He was pulled into the revolutionary whirl and fought with arms to promote its ideals. This period in his life had a decisive role in shaping his political outlook and determining his future. From this time on, the idea of liberating man from political and social injustice became his creed. He devoted all his life to this.