Toward the end of 1975 the author decided to edit a collection of essays on political developments in Southern Africa. Regional events since the Portuguese coup in April 1974 had already made an enormous impact, first suggesting the possibilities of peaceful accommodation between South Africa and its neighbours, but then demonstrating the destructive impact in Angola of widespread international intervention (in the latter half of 1975). From 1975 to the present, events in Southern Africa have neared centre stage in international attention, but, as these essays will show, outstanding regional differences are no closer to peaceful resolution in late 1979 than they were in early 1976.