Manning assesses Robin Law's The Oyo Empire, c. 1600-c. 1836 in two pages, and judges it as comprehensive an interpretation as present knowledge permits, joining political narrative, cross-sectional studies of capital, army and provinces, and an explanation of the empire's rise and collapse. He restates Law's reliance on cavalry, which fixed the empire's reach at the terrain horses could use, and Law's central theme of a constitutional struggle between the Alafin, the Oyo Mesi and the war chiefs, left unresolved by Abiodun's overthrow of Gaha in 1774 and issuing in the provincial revolts of the 1790s. Trade and government finance are handled with sensitivity, including the shifting coastal outlets for captives and the suggestion that export wealth bought horses and held officials loyal. Manning asks for more evidence on cavalry and on the domestic slaves who sustained palace and army, and doubts whether export growth in the 1780s drove prices or responded to them.