Racial Attitudes in South Africa. Historical, Experimental and Psychological Studies: By I. D. MacCrone. (Published on behalf of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, by the Oxford University Press, London, 1937. Pp. 328. Price, 12 s. 6 d. net.)

This is an extremely interesting volume for any psychologist interested in social and racial problems. It makes a serious attempt to evaluate the present inter-racial situation in South Africa, and the feelings and attitudes of the white inhabitants towards the natives, in the light of psycho-analytic contributions to group psychology.

The book is divided into three parts, the first being historical, bringing out the various psycho-social situations which have arisen from the history of colonization and of frontier development. The second part is an experimental study in the measurement of social attitudes, the results being subjected to statistical analysis. This section of the book stands apart, not being brought into relation either with the historical background or the strictly psychological section. In the third part an account is given of Freudian group psychology, followed by a qualitative study of the psychological factors affecting attitudes towards the native and of relevant aspects of the unconscious in action. These chapters are well written, and Dr. MacCrone's specific contributions are most interesting. His account of psycho-analytic views is competent, although it hardly goes far enough. Nor are the descriptive facts brought into sufficiently intimate relation with the theoretical statement.

A more penetrating analysis of the psychological factors affecting individual and group attitudes to natives might have been achieved had the author understood the more recent contributions of child analysis. MacCrone takes psycho-analytic theory to hold that man is not social by nature, but entirely egoistic: 'To say that man is a social animal is a contradiction in terms, … since it joins together what in the light of psycho-analytic theory are seen to be opposed to one another, and the real source of man's inner conflicts.' But through more recent psycho-analytic work, we have come to understand that the social aspects of man's nature are much more deep