A reassessment of theoretical debates and critical themes that have characterized postwar Sub-Saharan African politics, edited by the leading African scholars in African studies.

David E. Apter is Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Comparative Political and Social Development at Yale University. His publications incude Ghana in Transition; The Political Kingdom in Uganda: A Study of Bureaucratic Nationalism and The Politics of Modernization.

Carl R. Rosberg is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His publications include: with coeditor James S. Coleman, Political Parties and National Integration in Tropical Africa; with coauthor John Nottingham, The Myth of "Mau Mau" Nationalism in Kenya; and coauthor Robert H. Jackson, Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant.