The Royal African Society

Review
Reviewed Work(s): The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti by
K. A. Busia
Review by: R. R.
Source: African Affairs, Vol. 68, No. 270 (Jan., 1969), p. 72
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/719518
Accessed: 26-02-2017 20:55 UTC

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72 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

Professor Houghton is essentially fair

argument he usually presents both sid
Although the book covers all facets o
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on the causes and consequences of mig
markets because of government restrict
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Appendix are invaluable to those of u
publications. W.E.

The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti, by

K. A. Busia. Cass, 1968. xii,233pp. 45s. First published 1951. Although
Dr. Kofi Busia's doctoral thesis was first published only seventeen years ago it has
already become dauntingly rare. Frank Cass is to be applauded for including it
in his imaginative if expensive reprint series of Africana. As anthropology the
work has dated fast. But its value has always lain outside the immediate field of its
discipline. It is an energetic description of Ashanti chieftaincy and society in the
early colonial period. Busia uses both his professional training and his knowledge
of his own society-he is a member of the Wenchi Stool family-to add to and
sometimes correct the brilliant earlier work of Captain Rattray. The author
provides an important critique of both the Ashanti system of government and
British policy towards it. Although Dr. Busia can hardly be described as a
value-free observer, his account is tolerant and well argued. His description of
the structural changes in Ashanti brought about by its conquest and administration
by the British is excellent background for later historical works such as William
Tordoff's Ashanti Under the Prempehs. For all its deficiencies Dr. Busia's book
remains a fresh and important contribution to our understanding of one of the
complex cultures distorted and diminished by the colonial presence. R.R.

The Wealth of Nigeria, by G. Brian Stapleton. OUP, 1967. x,264pp. 28s.

This book, first published in 1958, was deservedly successful as an objective and
easily readable survey of use 'to teachers, business men, clerks, politicians,
students . . . ' (p. vii). But it is hard to see what prompted the Oxford University
Press to issue in 1967, nearly ten years later, a second edition which is virtually
unrevised and hence hopelessly dated. Such statements as: ' Nigeria today is in
the fortunate position of spending annually only 0-1 per cent of her national income
on her armed forces (the Nigeria Regiment), indeed a happy country' (p. 83);
'At the present time such loans are entirely from the United Kingdom, due to
Nigeria's colonial status .. . ' (p. 200). ' As this work is about to be published the
first reports of the 1957 Constitutional Conference are coming out . . . ' (p. 213)
make it difficult to know to whom the 1967 second edition can be safely
recommended. T.S.

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