Livre en anglais – Mahmud Modibbo Tukur’s seminal work challenges fundamental assumptions and conclusions about European colonialism in Africa, especially British colonialism in northern Nigeria. Whereas others have presented the thesis of a welcome reception of the imposition of British colonialism by the people of northern Nigeria, the study has found physical resistance and tremendous hostility towards that imposition; and, contrary to the premise of “pacification” and minimal violence argued by some scholars, the study has exposed the violent and bloody nature of that occupation. Rather than the single story of the “Indirect rule” administrative mandate, or “abolishing slavery” and lifting the burden of precolonial taxation which others have argued, this book has shown that British officials were very much in evidence, imposed numerous and heavier taxes collected with great efficiency and ruthlessness, and ignored the health and welfare of the people in famines and health epidemics which ravaged communities in northern Nigeria during the period.