Patrick Chabal is Professor of Lusophone African Studies at King's College London. Jean-Pascal Daloz is a senior CNRS Research Fellow at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Bordeaux (CERVL).

'In Chabal's and Daloz's extended and detailed critique of the whole field of comparative politics we have virtually for the first time a general approach that is neither mired in the abstractions of grand theory ... nor overly concerned with ethnocentric normative judgements. [A...] The result is in my view, a major work, thorough, comprehensive, and genuinely ground-breaking: a treatise in the true sense of the word.' -Clifford Geertz, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton 'An original, timely, lucid and challenging book.' -Peter Burke, University of Cambridge

Patrick Chabal is Professor of Lusophone African Studies at King's College London. Jean-Pascal Daloz is a senior CNRS Research Fellow at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Bordeaux (CERVL).

'In Chabal's and Daloz's extended and detailed critique of the whole field of comparative politics we have virtually for the first time a general approach that is neither mired in the abstractions of grand theory ... nor overly concerned with ethnocentric normative judgements. [A...] The result is in my view, a major work, thorough, comprehensive, and genuinely ground-breaking: a treatise in the true sense of the word.' -Clifford Geertz, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton 'An original, timely, lucid and challenging book.' -Peter Burke, University of Cambridge

Patrick Chabal is Professor of Lusophone African Studies at King's College London. Jean-Pascal Daloz is a senior CNRS Research Fellow at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Bordeaux (CERVL).

'In Chabal's and Daloz's extended and detailed critique of the whole field of comparative politics we have virtually for the first time a general approach that is neither mired in the abstractions of grand theory ... nor overly concerned with ethnocentric normative judgements. [A...] The result is in my view, a major work, thorough, comprehensive, and genuinely ground-breaking: a treatise in the true sense of the word.' -Clifford Geertz, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton 'An original, timely, lucid and challenging book.' -Peter Burke, University of Cambridge