Vigilantes operate in the shadows rather than the bright lights of mainstream political consensus. They have arisen at many times in different regions of the world as defenders, often by force, of their view of the good life against those they see to be its enemies. Recent reports of their activities in Britain, Ireland, mainland Europe, Africa, and America have appeared in the press. Yet they have been relatively little studied outside the United States, where they hold a special if at times romanticized position in the nation's history. It may be that their common involvement in the defence...

The Nyamwezi of west-central Tanzania have had a long history of involvement in the wider world as farmers, traders, migrant labourers, and subjects of first German and then British colonial regimes. Dr Abrahams first lived and worked among the Nyamwezi in the last years of British rule (1957 60), and he revisited their area in 1974 5 and 1978. This book is based largely on these later visits and traces the nature of developments since his earlier work and publications on the people. He discusses the people's integration into their new nation and examines the changes and problems that this...