It is the story of an Igbo man, Obi Okonkwo, who leaves his village for an education in Britain and then a job in the Colonial Nigeria civil service, but is conflicted between his African culture and Western lifestyle and ends up taking a bribe.

The book's title was taken from the closing lines of T. S. Eliot's poem, "Journey of the Magi": We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,With an alien people clutching their gods.I should be glad of another death.

It then jumps back in time to a point before his departure for England and works its way forward to describe how Obi ended up on trial.

The members of the Umuofia Progressive Union (UPU), a group of Umuofia natives who have left their villages to live in major Nigerian cities, have taken up a collection to send Obi to England to study law, in the hope that he will return to help his people by representing them in the colonial legal system, particularly with respect to land cases.

He remains intent on marrying Clara, but even his Christian father opposes, albeit reluctantly due to his desire to progress and eschew the "heathen" customs of pre-colonial Nigeria.

Obi struggles to balance the demands of his family and village for monetary support while simultaneously keeping up with the materialism of Western culture.

"[2] Arthur Lerner of Los Angeles City College wrote that "The second novel of this young Nigerian author continues the promise of its predecessor, Things Fall Apart.