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432 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. vii (1977)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0432 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE Last year was the Bicentennial of the United States, and the Academy celebrated by having a special Bicentennial conference on the Constitution. We called that conference The Revolution, the Constitution, and America's Third Century. In conformity with our alternating domestic and interna- tional themes for our annual meetings, this year we have taken as our topic Africa in Transition. Every society, all life, is in a state of transition. Nothing, or relatively little, is stable. We move from birth to death, from being young to old, and if there is any merit in accepting the theory that society has an organic parallelism to the human, there is a birth and decay of civilizations. There are changes, evolutions, and revolutions that occur. It is true that all societies are in some state of transition, but we have used African transition as our theme because there are tremendously dramatic changes occurring in that massive continent. There is movement from colonialism to independence; there is movement of populations from rural to urban communities, civil societies, to civilization. There is a transition in almost all social institutions of humanity in Africa: the family, education, criminal justice systems, economic and political systems. Africa today represents more of a state of radical and dramatic transition than any other continent in the world. This is why we feel justified in speaking about African transition as our theme. There is turbulence in the shifting of political systems; there are totalitarian and democratic regimes. There are monumental economic changes occurring with increasing productivity in some places and amazing excessive importation of goods in others. There are educational changes; there is uprooting of families; there is an increase in crime; there are transitions of the elites, the intelligentsia, and the workers. Tribal groups are being reformed as local political entities. Food and population distribu- tions are significantly altered as previously colonial-ruled groups become self-determiners of their fate. The blacks have emerged as a racial group, pure and mixed, as significant members of the human race in a world of men and the world of politics. Cuba, Russia, and China vie with Israel, the United States, and Western Europe for allegiances and alliances in that continent. Dominance is replaced by persuasion, political hegemony is substituted by economic bartering. Africa has said adieu to white supremacy and is now entering the arena of economic and political tradeoffs for its own advantage. No longer the home of the white hunter, the upper class safaris, Africa is black resurrection demanding to be recognized for its pluralism and its search for unification. There have been many significant developments on many fronts in Africa. They are placed before us almost every day in the press. There are important comments commanding world attention that are being made vii

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