The guiding principle is found in the sub-title: Reflection on Cameroonian Realities andPotential. After a glimpse at the history of the country by highlighting the fact thatCameroon was never a statutory colony, the author invites his compatriots to remain thepatriots that their ancestors had been. At the cross-roads of the past and the present, theauthor sketches a moral portrait of the Cameroonian who is paradoxically torn between thesentiment of ethnic rootedness and the project of the creation of a new ethnic group calledthe Cameroonian nation. The first chapter Cameroon as an Idea: Ethnic groups and theNation-State is devoted to this project. State Power is called upon to be pedagogic, theobject of chapter II which proposes important reforms not only in the action of buildingthe nation by mobilising sufficient means to take the common good into account overethnic interests, but also in a more democratic balance of the executive and legislativepowers. In the third chapter entitled The Development Front the absence of an ambitiousvision of projects, the under-exploitation of the country's intellectual potential as well as itsnatural resources is heavily deplored. The demand for the celebration of excellence ispresented through education and scientific research in particular. The same demand ismade concerning the bilingual character of the country, called, not to remain merelyformal, but rather to evolve towards a multilingualism susceptible of fostering theemergence of private cultural enterprises granting crash courses in the different languages used in the UN system and for a greater presence of Cameroon on the international scene.The book ends with a synthesis with 57 propositions for action, constitutive of the AnnexeII, the Annex I havening been devoted to the distinctive marks of the Cameroonianidentity.