Customary Law in the Modern World is the study of a coherent and well-established legal system, which is now operating in the context of a modern nation-state and therefore poised between remaining relevant and the threat of marginalization.

Focusing on Sudan, the author places customary law in its historical and cultural context, analyzing the fundamental and traditional values that underlie customary law and the impact of the war between the North and the South that lasted intermittently for half a century. He deals with the substance of customary law, covering a...

Written by a member of the last generation of British Colonial Service Officers in Africa, the book seeks to place both colonial rulers and their African successors in the context of history and the circumstances of their time, viewing their achievements and failures critically but not unsympathetically and comparing colonial society with that of the independent African country that Northern Rhodesia has become. Colonialism is viewed at the day to day level of the administration of a rural district by four officers and a handful of African district messengers, who worked together without...

This is a classic early account of the slave trade, taken from a journal kept by a young Irishman who crewed on the trans-Atlantic slave ships and became a trader on the West African coast. Covering the years 1746-1757, it was written before humanitarian feeling turned public opinion turned against slavery, and is notable for its matter-of-fact approach to what was then seen simply as another form of commerce. Its particular value lies in the light it throws on the Europeans involved in the slave trade - how they became involved in it, their role in the trading process, and their way...