This classic work, which involved the collaboration of leading figures in the field of social anthropology, was the first to undertake the comparative study of African politica systems, as an example of the wider field of study of political institutions in traditional societies in general, which is an important branch of anthropology but which had not, until this book appeared, received the attention it deserved. The book is based on field studies of eight African societies: the Zulu, the Ngwato, the Bemba, the Kingdom of Ankole, the Kede, the Bantu, the Tallensi, and the Nuer. The continuing importance of the book lies in its illustration of the application of the comparative method, in the accounts of different African societies by distinguished anthropologists who were instrumental in establishing the field, and in the unique portrait it presents of traditional African societies at the end of the colonial era, poised upon the brink of a time of great change.