The Dawning Light

The Dawning Light is a 1959 science fiction novel published under the name Robert Randall, collaborative pseudonym of American writers Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett. It depicts the changes, after the events of The Shrouded Planet
by the same authors, in the society of the fictional planet Nidor, a
world perpetually covered in dense cloud, inhabited by humanoids
resembling humans but differing in several respects, notably in being
covered from head to foot in short downy fur. The technological level
of the society is about that of Renaissance Europe, and has been that
way for thousands of years.

In the novel the main characters are struggling to throw off the
influence of the Earthmen. These are humans with advanced technology,
who came to their planet as benefactors, founding a university and
presiding over advances in agriculture, but whose work always seemed to
have adverse results. Some of this was depicted in a previous set of
shorter stories, collected as The Shrouded Planet two years previously.