This book brings together a selection of the leading essays of J F Ade Ajayi, written over a forty year period, 1958-1998, many of them hitherto unpublished. Ajayi, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, is a pioneer Africanist, known worldwide for his contribution to the development of African Studies and Nigerian history. This important work firmly established him as a leading African historian and illuminates the underlying causes of political instability in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa.