ONE of the most tortured and significant developments of contemporary history is the emergence of Black Africa into modern civilization. Covering this explosion of new countries, new names, new faces and new facts week by week and year by year, TIME has reported the immediate news as it happened and has assessed the development in a wide range of major pieces, including cover stories on Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah. Guinea's President Sekou Toure, Kenya's Independence Leader Tom Mboya, Nigeria's Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and Katanga's secessionist President Moise Tshombe. This week TIME wraps it all up in a brief but thorough guide to the cultural, political and economic state of 27 countries in the new Africa in mid-1962.

The gathering of information for this study began last October, with Senior Editor Henry Grunwald, Associate Editor Michael Demarest and Researcher Marion Pikul in charge of the project. They drew gratefully upon the existing scholarly literature on the subject, but found it often incomplete or out of date. Most of the latest information had to come from TIME correspondents, and in all, 35 reporters contributed to the work. This included not only correspondents in Africa, but also in London (for information on former British territories), Paris (for former French territories) and Washington, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles supplied interviews with more Africa experts. The biggest share of the work fell to Johannesburg Bureau Chief Lee Griggs,* who has been in all but four of the 27 countries. The range of the information he supplied is illustrated by one checking query which asked: "Is it true that northern Dahomeans still practice cannibalism?'' His answer: "Yes. When something unfortunate happens to a member of a tribe in that area, it is common belief that someone else in the tribe has somehow 'eaten his soul.' The offender is sought out, poisoned and eaten by the tribe."

The result of all the material compiled over the weeks appears in three pages in THE WORLD, and is,we believe, the most compact and up-to-date report to be found anywhere on Africa's emerging nations.

* Who this week, after almost three years in Africa, is en route to Tokyo, to become chief of the TIME-LIFE bureau.

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