This book is a welcome addition to the too slowly increasing literature on the history and sociology of education in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Students and administrators will find the book invaluable for an understanding of the problems of planning education in a Caribbean territory. Professor Bacchus' main theme is the massive expansion of education facilities in Guyana, especially at the secondary level, from the mid 1940s to 1974. He traces this demand to several interrelated causes: parents saw education as the main lever of upward social and economic mobility; there was an expansion of opportunities for white collar jobs especially in the public sector; the dissolution of ascriptive criteria (race/colour) in filling vacancies in the high status, better remunerated modern sector of the economy in favour of achievement opened the way to employment of Afro-Guyanese and Indo Guyanese; the gradual transition from colonial rule to self government and independence allowed elected representatives of the people to define national goals and they espoused the ideal of equal opportunity in education perceiving it as an instrument of development; even unemployment among the educated stimulated the demand for more education as the probability of employment in the long run seemed to depend on increased qualifications. Indeed one of the undercurrents of the book is that Guyana was locked into a too expensive, compulsive, and vicious circle of ever increasing provision of largely irrelevant academic education. The data to illustrate this expansion in facilities and expenditure on primary, secondary and technical schools (as well as teacher education and education at the University of Guyana) is full and comprehensive. In this area lies one of the solid achievements of the book.