In this well-researched, well-written, and fascinating study, the author provides us with valuable and penetrating insights into the nature and practice of British imperialism in Africa, focusing especially on the nuts and bolts of development planning, the centrality of agriculture to the colonial economy, and the clash and ultimate failures of development ideologies in Africa during the late colonial period. Using Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria, as a case study, the book rejects the conventional explanations, by scholars, that are focused on implementation. A product of careful archival research and nuanced analyses, this is a new and refreshing perspective on the failure of development plans in colonial Africa and a major contribution to our understanding of the successes and failures of British imperialism in Africa. -- Funso Afolayan, University of New Hampshire Why did late-colonial development policy not develop Africa? Why does Africa today remain, in general, the supplier of primary products both vegetable and mineral to the industrialized world? In this impeccably researched, lucidly written study, Ukelina's answer ranges from village politics in southern Nigeria to the Colonial Office in London and, more recently, the World Bank. But he also makes room for real people on the ground, some of them local heroes: political officers, agricultural experts, and 'native authorities', each competing for authority on shoe-string budgets and on programs that aimed to enlarge production within existing export economies, subject to the world's unstable terms of trade, rather than to transform them by diversification. -- John Lonsdale, Trinity College, Cambridge