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Thomas L. Hodgkin (1910-1982)
African Political Parties. An introductory guide

Penguin Books. Baltimore. 1961. African Series coll. David & Helen Kimble, eds. 217 p.

Foreword

The writing of this book has been made possible by the help of innumerable Africans — party members and leaders especially — who have taught me a great deal in the course of the past dozen years. Though there is not room here to thank them all by name, I wish at least to record how deeply I am in their debt.
I have also benefited enormously from frequent discussions and correspondence with a small group of friends, who have studied the political parties of particular African territories far more closely than I, and on whose writings and ideas I have constantly drawn: above all

• Dr Ruth Schachter, of the African Research and Studies Program, Boston University
• Mr Dennis Austin, Professor Kenneth Robinson, of the London University Institute of Commonwealth Studies
• Dr James Coleman, of the University of California in Los Angeles
• Dr David Apter, of Chicago University
• Professor Asa Briggs of the University of Leeds
• Dr Martin Kilson of Harvard University
• Mr Jeffrey Butler
• Mr Howard Walker of Boston University

among others, have read part or all of the typescript and made valuable criticisms and suggestions.

There are many others with whom I have discussed the various topics dealt with here and who have helped me with their specialized knowledge: in particular,

• Dr Anthony Low
• Dr Bernard Chidzero
• M. Alioune Diop
• M. Abdoulaye Ly
• M. Alexandre Adande
• Mr Richard Sklar
• Dr Gray Cowan
• Dr Carl Rosberg
• Mr J. H. Price
• Dr Peter Lloyd
• Professor Georges Balandier
• Professor St Clair Drake
• Dr Okoi Arikpo
• M. Philippe Decraene
• Mme Eve Paret
• M. Muhammad Kellou
• Mr Nevill Barbour
• M. Claude Tardits
• Mr Michael Crowder
• Mr Dennis Phombeah
• Dr Cranford Pratt
• Mr David Williams
• Dr Kalu Ezera
• Mr George Bennett
• Professor Kenneth Kirkwood
• Mr Basil Davidson.

I remember with especial gratitude the stimulus and criticism of Professor Sa'ad-ed-din Fawzi, of the University of Khartoum, whose early death has been a great loss to Sudanese and African studies. Like other wandering marabouts, 1 have been happy, while I have been working on this book, to enjoy the hospitality and encouragement of kindly patrons:

• Professor Melville Herskovits, Director of the Program of African Studies, Northwestern University
• Professor Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal
• Professor Theodore Monod, Director of the Institut Français d'Afrique Noire, Dakar
• Professor W. O. Brown, Director of the African Research and Studies Program, Boston University
• Professor I. I. Potekhin, Director of the African Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.

Two others on whom I have depended a great deal are Mrs Audrey Martin, of the Oxford University Institute of Commonwealth Studies, a perfect librarian, and Elizabeth Hodgkin, a perfect daughter, who was responsible for compiling most of the material used in the Appendix.

Since I have drawn rather heavily on a limited range of sources — including a number of unpublished papers — I have avoided cluttering up the text with footnotes. instead I have followed the fairly normal practice of giving a numbered list of all the main sources used at the end of the book, and citing these sources simply by their numbers in the text. Though this has meant not giving page references, it will not, I hope, cause serious problems for those who wish to go back to the sources and consult the works that I have used.
I hope too that the general reader and the student, for whom this book is intended, will not be bothered by the various combinations of letters which have come to stand as party labels. I have tried always to mention a party by its full name when it first occurs in the text, while normally using the accepted abbreviations on later occasions — but I have not been entirely consistent over this. In any case the reader who is stuck over a party label will find an alphabetical index to the Appendix, in which all these abbreviations are listed, together with the full names of the parties to which they refer, and the territories in which these parties operate.

T. L. H.

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