70.
In summary then, this book might be of use in an upper division course where sophisticated readers could compensate for the book's weaknesses. It might well be used as supplementary reading (with Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism for example) or as a good base for a book review essay assignment since it does have some problems. As a descriptive record of the struggle for independence and the years up through the 1966 coup in Ghana it does serve a purpose.
Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands: A Comprehensive Bibliography. By Joseph M. McCarthy. New York: Garland, 1977. Review by Richard A. Lobban, Jr., Rhode Island College.
This bibiography is just what it claims to be.- There is no introductory essay, nor is there any annotation of the bibliographic citations. It does, however, present a comprehensive collection of sources in various European languages, and especially in Portuguese which, naturally, has been the
language of a very significant portion of the studies on these former colonies of Portugal. The bibliography is also comprehensive in the subjects which are covered from Agriculture to Economics and Religion to name three of the twenty separate topics. The section on the Liberation Struggle is particularly useful for those interested in the main currents of African nationalism.
McCarthy's work is THE place to begin any serious study of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. None of the other existing bibliographers covering Portuguese Africa is as complete as his. As a research tool for these African nations the book is to be highly recommended and is a significant contribution to more scholarly investigation of the culture, history, flora and fauna of the two countries. The virtual monopoly of research in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde by the Portuguese and their centuries of colonialism is being broken by this and other efforts in the area. The McCarthy bibliography provides a key to open doors of inquiry which were only ajar for those not
equipped to have access to the wider literature. At the same time it brings the fine scholarly works of Portuguese anthropologists and historians to wider attention. The writings of Antonio Carreira, Antonio Correa, and Avelino da Mota, to name only a few of the more prominent Portuguese writers, are very worthwhile reading.
The author index at the end of the book gives another channel of access into this bibliographic collection so that familiarity with either author or subject can instantly produce the compiled sources. At the risk of being immodest I suggest that the McCarthy volume be used as a companion to my own ref erence book, An Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (Scarecrow) which procides dictionary style entires on the same wide variety of subjects as covered by McCarthy. Together the two books may represent the logical starting point for more advanced studies of the two African nations. In the coming years I should think, and I assume that McCarthy should agree, that more books and papers will appear on ths subject. In this light McCarthy has made a useful contribution indeed.