Until now a key chapter has been missing from the history of contemporary Africa, namely the role played by student movements in the social and political evolution of the continent. While extensive studies have been made of the various independence movements, trades unions and so forth, little or nothing was done to give an account of student movements until very recently.

That gap has now been filled by the publication of the present work, which is Volume 12 in the series entitled 'The general history of Africa studies and documents'.

It will be seen that some of the great names associated with public life in post-independence Africa established their reputations long before as leading lights in the student movements, e.g. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Hastings Banda, Cheikh Anta Diop, Jomo Kenyatta, Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow and Kwame Nkrumah, to mention but a few. They stepped from those student platforms straight into the political or trades-union arena.

There are rich pickings for researchers who would compare the ideas that those figures upheld as students with the choices they were later to make in administrating their states. One of the authors of the present work inquires whether there has been genuine class struggle or mere jockeying for position. However, that is outside the scope of the present work and the answer should be sought in the individual biographies of these eminent persons.