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AUTHOR'S NOTE
This is a history of modem Africa, of twentieth-century Africa, by way of the development of African political ideas and practices. It was long in preparation: from the time, really, when in 19501 first began to study the continent, and since continued through all the years between. So in the first place I have to thank many persons in many African countries for helping me, through more than a quarter of a century, to become less ignorant or mistaken; and this I do most sincerely.
When it came at last to writing I found that the getting from the 18 80s to the present day, despite all the preparations I had made, was still like the climbing of a mountain whose summit lay out of sight, whose weather could not be relied on, and whose possible routes up the rock-face were hard to find and harder to follow. I am again grateful to more guides than I can mention here for messages of encouragement or cries of warning along the way; but I owe an especial debt to Christopher Fyfe and Terence Ranger, as well as to Adenekan Ademóla, Pierre Alexandre, Bogumil Andrzejewski, Cathérine Coquéry-Vidrovitch, Polly Hill, Thomas Hodgkin, Marion Johnson, Ayodele Langley, Ann Seidman and Jean Suret-Canale. They did their best to keep me safely on my climb to the top, but caimot possibly be blamed for my slips and wanderings on the way.
I am indebted to the Simon Research Council and the Senate of the University of Manchester for a valued research fellowship in aid of this work, and to Peter Worsley for so patiently receiving me into his department at Manchester. I wish to thank a number of African leaders and governments for giving me advice and access to records; the University of Ibadan for allowing me to