Superpowers and Victims: The outlook for World Community,

by Charlotte Waterlow - A Spectrum Book, published by Prentice Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Retail price $2.45 from Whitcoulls. 181 + x pages.

Reviewed by David Tripe

If you thought that a book...published by Prentice Hall in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey would be unlikely to contain a vicious attack on the present economic and political structure of the world order, you would be right. Furthermore, when you get the feeling that the book you are reading is written rather in the style of a secondary school text book, you should not be surprised to discover that it is written by someone who is a secondary school teacher.

In practice, I would be inclined to suspect that this might be the intended purpose of the book. It might well be suited to the needs of a sixth or seventh form liberal studies class. The author is not so blind as to suggest that there is nothing wrong with the present world order. She gives quite a good account of some of the problems facing the poorer countries of the world, and describes some of the ways being attempted to counter poverty in those poor countries where there are attempts being made to do so, with particular emphasis on China, India, and Tanzania. And, of course, in her eyes, there is a nice simple way out, following the democratic path adopted by India, which leads on to the somewhat elusive concept of World Community, which concept is not properly defined anywhere, except in the introduction where it is asserted to be the solution to the world's problems. But there is no doubt that we have a thoroughly suitable ideology for teaching Liberal Studies Classes.

The book does succeed in usefully describing some of the world's problems. It gives a reasonably straightforward account of some of the problems of aid - that, at least in some respects it is often nothing of the sort - even if some of the other problems of aid are disregarded. It gives an explanation of some of the ways in which the Soviet Union practises imperialism by forcing poor countries to surrender raw materials to it at artificially low prices. It shows how the USA supports fascist dictatorships throughout Latin America in the name of freedom and democracy. But there are ironic touches. There are innumerable quotations from Robert MacNamara, director of the World Bank, expressing grave concern at this and (hat, when this same man was responsible for the escalation of the Vietnam war in the early 1960's, in which the USA was attempting to assert a right to practise the impoverishment of South East Asia. And it is also ironic to read about the democratic path to development being followed by India, so soon after Ms Chandi has abolished the last pretences of democracy.

But you might get something out of reading this book; even I was amused by what I must regard as an interesting comment on the activities of the New Zealand Electricity Department - that if the demand for electricity continues to double every ten years, in seven hundred years, the entire mass of the earth must have been converted to energy!