IN substance this book is made up of the Wiles Lectures which I was honoured to be invited to give at Queen's University, Belfast, in May 1994. It was a special honour that Mrs Janet Boyd, Trustee and principal benefactress, should in her ninetieth year along with her son and daughter-in-law have attended all four of the lectures and been so gracious afterwards.

The outlines of what follows were earlier presented as the inaugural William W. Gallagher Lecture in International Studies at Pacific University, Oregon, at the very kind invitation of President Robert E. Duvall. My wife and I were received in Forest Grove and Portland with the very greatest kindness and we remember our visit with the warmest pleasure.

In Belfast David Hempton displayed both singular skill and great kindness as an astonishingly conscientious chairman. Peter JuPP was the no less remarkable impresario of the quite exceptional hospitality which Queen's University seems to provide upon such occasions. It was a great pleasure too to have David Harkness, Declan Quigley, and Joyce Pettigrew, amongst others, of the company, and two former Queen's academics, Deborah Lavin, and my longsince colleague at what is now Makerere University in Uganda, Cyril Ehrlich, as well.

A striking feature of the Wiles programme is the invitation to the lecturer to suggest half a dozen or so younger scholars who can be invited to Belfast to attend the lectures, and who, following a postlecture reception and dinner each evening, can then be asked to open the subsequent hour and a haIrs seminar on each lecture, before the inevitable adjournment to the bar. It was sad that Dipesh Chakrabarty was not able in the end to come from Chicago: but Toyin FaIola came from Austin, Texas; David Hardiman and David Anderson from London; David Throup from Keele; Subrata Mitra from Hull; and my colleagues Tim Harper and Hans van de Ven from Cambridge. Along with a vigorous local team and not least one of the continuing academic Trustees, Ian Kershaw from Sheffield, who was exceedingly helpful, they made the four days into what it is no exaggeration to say was for me a quite exceptional experience, for which to all of them, to the University, and to the Wiles Trustees, I shall always be exceedingly grateful.