J. Barry Riddell

Geography and the study of Third World underdevelopment re-revisited.

Progress in development geography has been recently associated with the shift of the perspective on underdevelopment from a right-wing, conservative standpoint to a leftward, liberal-radical position. Marxism often conceals its message in obscure rhetoric with moral overtones on colonialism, slavery, poverty, and underdevelopment. Liberal academics have lamely acceded to the dogmas of this once-assertive ideology. Marxist view have exerted a stimulus on debates, but could not provide answers to the issues of this discipline. The hopes of development and prosperity a generation ago have evaporated only to be replaced by news of economic malaise, the food crisis, and crushing debt. In the late 1980s geographers addressed Third World environmental issues. Blaikie and Brookfield examined environmental deterioration among elements of the population-environment issue. Lewis and Berry dealt with African environments and resources. Watts and Bassett touched on agrarian and political concerns in West Africa. Adams examined water resources development in Nigerias Sokoto Valley. Bryceson analyzed the political economy of agriculture in Tanzania. Lawson depicted how government policy bore on agriculture and its regional pattern. Crush detailed the absorption of Swazi labor into the South African economy. Dayal described the deficiency diet of agricultural workers in Bangladesh. Others examined Africas financial disaster, Japans trade surplus, and the global population crisis. Nevertheless, the dearth of output on and neglect of Third World issues by human geographers awaits positive research publications.

Regression Analysis of Aggregate Migra tion Data in the Third World: A Review and Comment*

In many countries of the underdeveloped or third world, recent censuses have provided a set of data describing internal, inter-regional population movements. In virtually all instances, these provide the first information describing such migration at a national level. The availability of such data has led directly to a number of studies which have employed the information in a series of regression analyses. Here, such studies are critically described and reviewed. Perhaps the most facile generalization of these efforts would typlify them as second-generation Lowry studies (1966) in the sense that virtually all are formulated and conceptualized in a manner similar to Lowry’s now classic study, and many of them formally acknowledge such a direct link. Included within this group of research efforts are analyses of migration in Colombia (Schultz 1971), Egypt (Greenwood 1969), Ghana (Beals, Levy and Moses 1967), India (Greenwood 1971a; 1971b), Sierra Leone (Riddell 1970b; Riddell and Harvey 1972), Uganda (Goddard and Massey) and Venezuela (Levy and Wadycki 1972a; 1972b).

Book reviews : Onimode, B. 1992: A future for Africa: beyond the politics of adjustment. London: Earthscan. x+ 182 pp. £12.95 paper. ISBN: 1 853 83100 X

ter 8, by Walzer, Jones and Magnusson is an ambitious cross-country statistical analysis. This, with Chapter 9 by the same authors plus Bokenstrand, based on mailed-out surveys to city officials, attempts a very large-scale generalization. The major conclusions can probably be trusted, but there lurks beneath the surface a range of difficult questions of how different respondents have interpreted the different questions. A copy of the survey would be helpful as an appendix. The diagrams in this chapter are also poorly produced. Chapter 10 by Hoffmann-Martinot is one of the most careful and crucial in the book. He

Book Review: Regional Mobility and Resource Development in West AfricaRegional Mobility and Resource Development in West Africa. By MabogunjeAkin L.Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1972. Pp. 154.

The author simply takes too many liberties with the information used. There are long quotes in too many places and laments that more could not be produces. In some cases she makes statements on no observable evidence, but the most disturbing aspect of the book is that she did not look for evidence. Even a cursory look at the footnotes would indicate that family papers, some newspapers, and readily available government papers served as the only sources. In numerous places she could have searched other materials, but did not. Furthermore, there is little evidence that the author knew or understood any of the great movements of Irish history in the nineteenth century. In short, one can find some interesting material here, but also a great deal of exaggeration and no little frustration with the failure of the author to perform the research necessary to answer the questions her book raises. The publisher may try to say otherwise on the infold of the jacket, but it is just not true.