Book excerpt: Eighteen of Africa's most distinguished scholars have contributed to this major and timely work, including Claude Ake, Archie Mafeje, Ali Mazrui, Issa Shivji and Joseph Ki-Zerbo. As a first step towards greater consideration of the nature of the research environment in Africa and to reflect on the social and material context of research as an intellectual activity, CODESRIA co-organised a major conference on academic freedom and research in Africa in Kampala in 1990. A selection of the conferencepapers are contained in this volume. The papers cover the relationship of capital and the state to academic freedom, the historical processes which have shaped intellectuals in Africa, issue of autonomy and democracy andthe question of funding relationships, and the difficulty of alliances that question the right to independence. The book is divided into fivesections: Reflections; Methodological Perspectives; Global Influences andLocal Constraints; Intelligentsia and Activism; and Organizing Academics.