In the half century preceding imperial control approximately eight hundred Britons lived and travelled in East and Central Africa. Prelude to Imperialism (1965) examines their relations with and attitudes to African tribal societies. The author presents a broad survey of tribal life, an analysis of culture contact, and an extended discussion of the underlying assumptions of the British evaluation of Africans and of the conditions in which they lived. The description of African social conditions and the analysis of grass roots imperialism constitute important contributions to the debate on Western imperialism.

Today, the courtroom is the battlefield, the boardroom is the trading post, and it's chiefs (not governors) who recite winning proclamations to the losing side. That's because natives have racked up the most impressive legal winning streak in Canadian history with well over 150 wins. The defining dynamic of these David and Goliath match-ups is the remarkable rise of native empowerment as Canada's First Peoples redraw the map of our home and native land. Resource Rulers tracks the rise of native empowerment and its remarkable legal winning streak in the Canadian resource sector. It offers a way forward, with new rules of engagement for resource development and for winning outcomes in the road-to-resources sweepstakes.

In Citizens Plus, Alan Cairns unravels the historical record to clarify the current impasse in negotiations between Aboriginal peoples and the state. He considers the assimilationist policy assumptions of the imperial era, examines more recent government initiatives, and analyzes the emergence of the nation-to-nation paradigm given massive support by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. We are battered by contending visions, he argues - a revised assimilation policy that finds its support in the Canadian Alliance Party is countered by the nation-to-nation vision, which frames our future as coexisting solitudes. Citizens Plus stakes out a middle ground with its support for constitutional and institutional arrangements which will simultaneously recognize Aboriginal difference and reinforce a solidarity which binds us together in common citizenship. Selected as a BC Book for Everybody