Kingship and State
The Buganda Dynasty

An elegant and wide-ranging 2006 study of the precolonial kingdom of Bugunda, nucleus of modern Uganda.

Christopher Wrigley (Author)

9780521473705, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 February 1996

312 pages, 3 maps 9 tables
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.3 cm, 0.587 kg

"Christopher Wrigley's brilliantly original and provocative work of research and synthesis may inspire renewed attention by other scholars to major issues of precolonial lake region history at a time when archaeology is revealing much new information." John A. Rowe, International Journal of African Historical Studies

The precolonial kingdom of Buganda, nucleus of the present Uganda state, has long attracted scholarly interest. Since written records are lacking entirely until 1862, historians have had to rely on oral traditions that were recorded from the end of the nineteenth century. These sources provide rich materials on Buganda in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but in this 1996 book Christopher Wrigley endeavours to show that the stories which appear to relate to earlier periods are largely mythology. He argues that this does not reduce their value since they are of interest in their own mythical right, revealing ancient traces of sacred kingship, and also throwing oblique light on the development of the recent state. He has written an elegant and wide-ranging study of one of Africa's most famous kingdoms.

1. Preamble
2. The story and its making
3. Introduction to myth
4. Introduction to Buganda
5. The remoter past
6. Genesis
7. The cycle of the kings
8. Fragments of history
9. Foreign affairs
10. The making of the state
11. Reflections.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], African history [HBJH]