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Islam and tribal art in West Africa . By René A. Bravmann. (African Studies, 11.) pp. xii, 190. Cambridge, University Press, 1974. £5.

This summary ends with a paragraph headed "The urgency of further studies". It would be easy to criticize this book for being insufficiently detailed. However, the author does what he sets out to do— namely, he covers as much ground as he could in a limited time. Given a choice between this work or a detailed study of one dialect, almost all dialectologists would come down in favour of this kind of book. There is relatively little written on Arabian dialects and the more one sees the more one realizes that this area conserves ancient features which have altogether disappeared in the Levant and outside Arabia, and that studies such as this are of the greatest importance for understanding the history of the Arabic language. Let us hope, therefore, that the author and others can continue work so well begun.