"An attempt to analyze the state of the book industries in sub-Saharan Africa thirty-five years after the major conference on publishing and book development in Africa that was held at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Nigeria, in 1973. Part one of this two-part article starts off with a look at the wider picture of development on the continent, and the support – or the lack of it rather for the most part – for publishing, books and libraries by successive African governments over the last three decades. In examining the very substantial body of literature that has been written on African publishing and book development over the last two decades, the author believes a great deal of it is still characterized by far too much generalization, and that there have been dozens of articles recently containing sweeping, mostly unsubstantiated statements to explain the current unsatisfactory state of the book industries in Africa and the factors that hold back its development." (Hans M. Zell, Publishing, Books & Reading in Sub-Saharan Africa, 3d ed. 2008, nr. 2520)