This book is about three decades overdue; and my first acknowledgements must be to my several paymasters, who have seen so little for their money: the Colonial Social Science Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, the University of Ibadan and the University of Sussex. My other greatest debts are to the dead: to my parents, to Sir Keith Hancock, who encouraged and enabled me to do history, and to Audrey Richards, who inducted me into Africa. Under Audrey's wise and friendly direction the East African Institute of Social Research in the 1950s was a most agreeable and stimulating place, and I owe a great deal to my fellow-workers of that time: the late Lloyd (‘Tom’) Fallers, the late Wilfred Whiteley, Aidan Southall, Walter Elkan, Anthony Low, Cyril Ehrlich, Jean La Fontaine, Martin Southwold among others, as well as to those who guided my steps into Buganda: Eridadi Muliira, Paulo Tamukedde, Yowana Kasagala, Hezekiah Matovu.

I cannot offer the usual list of people who have read and commented on my manuscript, because I was too insecure to show it to anyone. But Benjamin Ray did belatedly see some fragments and I am grateful for his comments, also for the constructive criticisms of the publisher's two anonymous readers. Over the years I have had fruitful (to me) discussions on Buganda's history with Martin Southwold, Michael Kenny and Michael Twaddle, and I have a particular debt to David Henige, who made scepticism respectable.