Scholars from all over the world contributed to the Festschrift volumes presented as a tribute to Thomas Hodgkin on his sixtieth birthday. This book contains a selection from those contributions, reflecting the wide scope of Hodgkin's own interests, work and influence in the field of African and Tiers Monde studies. All the contributions represent original and previously unpublished work in the fields of African history, Islamic studies and the sociology of religion, and also of contemporary political and economic studies. They are particularly concerned to examine questions of a general and theoretical importance, often by means of detailed case studies. Among the countries thus discussed are Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, Guiné Bissao, Zambia, Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Gambia - and, as part of the African diaspora, Jamaica. Fittingly, these essays share one of the main features which have distinguished Thomas Hodgkin's own work - they take a critically evaluative view of some of the e