In previous chapters we examined selected aspects of warfare and military organization in the emirates of the Sokoto Caliphate, particularly the changes that attended the adoption of cavalry early in the nineteenth century and the introduction of firearms toward the end of the century. In other words, warfare and military organization have been generally regarded as dependent or regulated variables to be explained in part by technological change, the independent or regulating variable. This perspective was broadened and occasionally reversed in Chapter 8 in an attempt to explain the developments in state structure (dependent variable) induced by changing military technology and organization (independent variables). The purpose of this chapter is to identify, describe, and explain in a more systematic manner the complex relationships between military factors and the political, economic, and social structure of these emirates.

This examination may be considered as an exercise in sociological history. Our study has already drawn upon some common sociological concepts and techniques, but in this chapter the adoption of an interdisciplinary mode of analysis is more explicit. Two considerations have suggested this methodological approach. The first is this writer's view that the progress of history as a discipline is dependent on the extent to which it emulates the social sciences. Second, a sociological approach is most appropriate to this investigation because in recent years sociologists (and their allies in anthropology) have engaged in considerable cross-historical and cross-cultural research on the functions of war. The growing corpus of their theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of war and military organization provides the general methodological foundation of the present inquiry.