This is a well-written and thought-provoking study on one of the most underdeveloped and marginalised areas of research in the English School (ES) literature, that is, the analysis of non-European regional societies and the role of their experiences, institutions, norms and values in the expansion process of European international society. It serves as a significant contribution to the existing scholarly work both on the ES literature of regional international societies and African studies.

The book is divided into two general parts; the first two chapters are devoted to the existing theoretical debates in the ES literature and their limitations with regard to the regional international societies. Focusing his research on West-Central Africa, Pella argues that three common fallacies in the ES literature do not allow us to avoid Eurocentrism in our analysis of (the history of) non-European societies including Africa. The first involves the prevalent view that Africans were ‘passive recipients’ of the dictated expansion process and did not have any role in shaping this process. In Pella's analysis, the geographic scope of the ES theory is also responsible for the neglect of socio-institutional practices of non-Europeans. The third common understanding is related with the privileging of system/society distinction and missing world society dimension which together create the further neglect of the individual interaction as well as common norms, values, interests and ideologies revolving outside the state domain.

The assumptions laid in the theoretical parts are well supported by the remaining empirical chapters through an in-depth analysis of political dynamics of the West-Central African region both before and after the large-scale European interaction. By presenting counter-arguments both in the theoretical and empirical parts, Pella seeks to revise the writings of classical ES thinkers on the expansion process. In doing so, he is careful to analyse how the expansion of European international society was made possible by the interaction with the polities in the region. Accordingly, the reader is well informed not only about the interactive structure of the expansion but also about how African roles and experiences played a significant part in this process. Further studies should pay particular attention especially to the following argument of Pella, that the need to strengthen the world society dimension of ES is imperative when exploring non-state societies. Indeed, the human domain in the English School literature is not necessarily developed to the extent that the other two dimensions of international system and international society have been. Equally important, one would find it hard to understand the real dynamics of the expansion process as well as the role played by African polities in this process with a sole focus on the states as central units of analysis. The book, therefore, produces a subtle analysis on how our methods and self-imposed disciplinary limitations can preclude us to reach out for proper examination of particular phenomena.

However, Pella himself shows us that although in the initial phases of expansion the mutual activities of non-state actors played a central role, the expansion accelerated by nation-states through destroying the earlier forms of interaction. Moreover, as Neumann puts in the foreword, Pella cannot escape from being Eurocentric by starting his discussion only sixty years before European contact but not a few centuries before when relations with the non-European world were common. Pella informs the reader that Africans long resisted the commodification of slavery which was radically incompatible with the African form of slave trade. However, it is not fully captured when and how Africans decided that the European perception of slavery might be profitable. Little attention was given to this development which can be considered as a key to the transformation of the structure of the slave trade. Yet, basing his arguments on his four previous publications, Pella has been successful in his attempt to develop an alternative framework to study this expansion process.