The name D. A. Low is a fixture in the fields of African and British imperial history. For over fifty years he has authored or coauthored and edited numerous books on the history of Buganda, Indian nationalism, and the end of the British Empire, including what is perhaps his most well-known work, Lion Rampant: Studies in British Imperialism (London, 1973). This book, Fabrication of Empire, is in many ways a magisterial achievement intended to cap a long and distinguished career. As Low notes in the preface, “Many moons ago I published a number of items on the history of Uganda and East Africa from the late nineteenth to around the mid twentieth century. Fortuitously my paths then took me for quite a while into working [on other subjects]. … Having done so, I began to ask questions about ‘the beginning of empire.’ That in due course took me back to the Uganda story and to this book” (ix).

The principal aim of the book is to examine the process by which colonial rule was extended in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century over what is today Uganda, looking carefully at what Low refers to as “ground level imperialism” (22). Low sees many similarities between the imposition of British rule in this region, which drew heavily on the traditional authority of the Ugandan kingdoms’ rulers and chiefs, and the establishment of colonial control in other parts of the British Empire. However, he also stresses that what happened in Uganda was unique and resulted in a system of colonial hegemony that possessed many distinctive features. He begins with a prologue that surveys some of the more well-known contributions to British imperial and Africanist historiography and then compares patterns of British imperial intervention in other regions outside of Africa, before laying out the book’s analytical framework. Low uses the idea of “defining conjunctures” (25) to describe the process by which these indigenous African polities were at first influenced and then gradually integrated into a system of colonial rule. He sees these conjunctures as being profoundly shaped by “conditioning circumstances” (25) but also passing through four distinct stages: from a precursor stage; to a raw assertion of British power, often in response to some kind of indigenous crisis; followed by a “determining vortex” (26) in which British hegemony was resisted or challenged in the form of mutinies or revolts, or in which a struggle for power occurs among indigenous elites that determines the fates of both losers and victors; to a final stage, which begins when this “determining vortex” reaches its climax and is resolved by the establishment of more permanent and institutionalized colonial settlements.

Much of the rest of the book fleshes out this framework in greater detail for each of the five principal kingdoms that would eventually form the Ugandan protectorate: Buganda, Bunyoro, Nkore, Toro, and Busoga. Despite what might at first glance appear to be an overly rigid conceptual model, Low is careful throughout the book not to lose sight of the initiatives of African leaders and historical figures and the determining role of local circumstances and events. In fact, one of the main points the book succeeds in demonstrating is the contingent and essentially makeshift nature of imperial expansion and ascendancy in Africa—hence, the emphasis on “fabrication” in the title of the book. Low argues: “There was next to nothing here of orderly ‘construction’ or anything that warrants so precise a term as ‘formation.’ Indeterminacy abounded” (27). Low stresses that the formation of what became the Uganda Protectorate was not inevitable, nor were its territorial boundaries preordained. Nor was the predominance of Buganda within the protectorate predetermined. If not for Mutesa’s skillful diplomacy and especially his invitation to Christian missionaries to come to Buganda, in contrast to Kabalega’s forceful resistance to Egyptian and British intrusions into the affairs of the northern lakes kingdoms, things might have turned out differently, with Bunyoro, rather than Buganda, serving as the nucleus of a new colonial configuration.

Perhaps the most striking example of the fortuitousness of the process and the importance of indigenous agency within it comes near the end of the book, when Low examines the events leading up to the drafting of the Uganda Agreement of 1900. It had been the intention of the special commissioner, Harry Johnston, to impose his will on the Buganda by annexing all land not designated for African occupation as “Crown land” and by dividing the country into a series of subdivisions for administration and tax collection purposes. However, the leading Buganda chiefs refused to go along with his plans, writing a strongly worded rebuttal. Johnson was forced to concede on several crucial points, including recognition of their traditional institutions of government, especially the upholding of their king and his chiefs’ council, the Kabaka and Lukiko, and the establishment of a new land settlement known as the mailo system, which allocated land in freehold to the Kabaka and the chiefs, thus creating an endowed native aristocracy who denied the existence of an independent peasantry. Low argues that the “Buganda model” served, in turn, as the blueprint for the further agreements that were hammered out with the other principal kingdoms. The resulting pattern, Low argues, “locked together the many traditional rulerships in the region and the new oligarchs in three of them with the colonial dominance of the British, so as to produce the powerful amalgam of traditional authority, newly emerging forces and the panoply of colonial power” (316).

One of the strengths of this study is the extensive empirical research and years of knowledge that Low brings to bear on the subject. It is so extensive, in fact, that many may find the rich descriptive detail of events and actors tedious and, at times, overwhelming. Indeed, if there is one criticism that can be leveled it is that the book is too densely packed with detail. It seems that every twist and turn of the Uganda story has been recorded here. While this may be intriguing for the specialist, for those interested in sub-Saharan Africa or imperial history more generally, it presents a formidable challenge. In addition, Low has not shown much interest in engaging with new approaches to imperial history or postcolonial studies. Such criticisms aside, this is an important and carefully crafted study of the dynamics of colonial hegemony in eastern Africa. Similar to Peter Marshall’s recent work, The Making and Unmaking of Empires (Oxford, 2005), it reminds us that the British Empire was a “negotiated empire,” shaped in different ways by its subjects. The resulting structure of rule was thus a hybrid of old and new and of European and indigenous interests and practices.