Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule is a major work on this small Sultanate which has played such a pivotal role in the history of East Africa. Mlahagwa and A. Not all of the writers are equally successful. Things do get better however. Indeed, if the reader can disregard the ideological cant which pervades the opening and closing paragraphs of several of the chapters, there is a wealth of facts and interesting documentation fairly evenly distributed throughout the rest of the book.
One needs to be a discerning reader however and alert to the occasions when the conspiratorial theory of history is given undue license. In general, the research based on East African sources is impressive. There are, justifiably, few comments on US relations with Zanzibar during the colonial period but those there are suffer from limited and ideologically selective sourcing.
The final chapter, by Abdulrahman Babu, deserves separate mention. The crucial events surrounding the revolution, in which Babu was a major participant, merit a much more extensive and detailed accounting. He could, if he wished, offer many more important personal insights than he provides here.
The broad range of international experience he has had since that time seems to have changed his thinking surprisingly little. Paschal B. Labour, Capital and Society This page paper is very revealing indeed. It illustrates in down-to-earth language the remarkable degree of initiative shown by Tanzanians in trying to feed their families on wages which were totally inadequate. The survey was conducted among workers in six Dar es Salaam enterprises in Many of the subterfuges referred to above are not confined to Tanzania of course but the paper then goes on further to describe also the changing nutritional, housing and transport patterns and even changes in mannerisms as employers and employees struggle to cope with the economic crisis.
Finally the author discusses the psychological and emotional consequences of all this. In his conclusions the writer emphasises the number of external factors eg: white elephant projects which had caused the crisis and how the workers, who had worked without complaint during this period and never staged any major protest or strike should not be made to bear the biggest portion of the blame — DRB.
