The district officer - the D.O. - was the pivot of the British Colonial Administration throughout the British Empire, as was his counterpart in India - immortalized in Philip Woodruff's "The Men who Ruled India". The D.O. who was both administrator and magistrate and the essential link with the professional and technical services and essentially, with the indigenous population - the 600,000,000 people they served - in an empire of service rather than domination. In this book, Anthony Kirk-Greene, who was himself a distinguished member of the Nigeria Service, draws upon personal memoirs, diaries, private and official papers, and his own experience, to paint a vivid picture of the service and a never-to-be-repeated episode in British history.