Living the End of Empire

Jan-Bart Gewald, Ph.D. (1996) in History, Leiden University, is a historian at the African Studies Centre in Leiden. He has published extensively on aspects of African history and is currently focusing on the relationship between people and technology in Africa.

Marja Hinfelaar, Ph.D. (2001) in History, Utrecht University, is an historian working at the National Archives of Zambia, where she coordinates digitisation projects. Her research interests include the historical relationship between church and state in Zambia.

Giacomo Macola, Ph.D. (2000) in History, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, is Lecturer in African History at the University of Kent at Canterbury and Researcher at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is the author of a number of monographs and articles on Zambian history. He is currently working on 'A Social History of Firearms in Central Africa to the Early Twentieth Century'.

All those interested in Central African, Colonial and Imperial History. In particular this book will appeal to academics and graduate students interested in the complexities of the late-colonial period.

'This well-integrated collection honors senior Zambianist historian Andrew Roberts (who contributes an introductory overview) without trying to encompass his manifold interests. It attains greater coherence than a typical festschrift by focusing on the last years of colonialism, particularly the contentious Central African Federation era of c.1953-63. Solid individual chapters cover European setters; the Indian community; the political roles of the Catholic Church, traditional chiefs, and labor unions; and early US diplomatic contacts. Christopher Annear's essay on the Luapula River fishery notably advances the ongoing restudy of classic Rhodes-Livingstone Institute ethnographies. Perhaps most significant is coeditor Macola's revisionist view of pioneering nationalist leader Harry Nkumbula, crediting him with more astuteness and dedication than standard accounts. The editors dispute conventional views of an inevitable triumph by Kenneth Kaunda's United National Independence Party, which governed from 1964 to 1991. They emphasize clashing political visions among urban migrant elites in Lusaka, the Copperbelt and its northern hinterland, and Southern Province peasant producers represented by Nkumbula. This volume steers Zambian history in fruitful new directions and provides valuable components of any new consensus that may emerge.

Summing Up: Recommended. Academic and large public libraries; all levels. -- T. P. Johnson, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Reviewed in 2012 mar CHOICE.


'This edited volume seeks to portray the complexity of late colonial history in Zambia. It accomplishes this goal by shedding light on conflicts in the nationalist movement, chiefly and religious institutions and experiences of Western and Asian communities.....The narrative character makes this volume an enjoyable read'.

Esther Uzar, University of Basel, in 'African Studies Quarterly', Volume 13, Issue 3, Summer 2012

Contents

Dedication ...................................................................................................................vii
Andrew D. Roberts: An Appreciation ......................................................................ix
John McCracken

Background
1. Introduction: A New Take on Late Colonial Northern Rhodesia ....................3
Giacomo Macola, Jan-Bart Gewald and Marja Hinfelaar
2. Northern Rhodesia: The Post-War Background, 1945–1953 ..........................15
Andrew D. Roberts

The Polyphony of African Nationalism
3. Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula and the Formation of ZANC/UNIP: A Reinterpretation ......27
Giacomo Macola
4. Traditional Rulers, Nationalists and the Quest for Freedom in Northern Rhodesia in the 1950s ...........67
Walima T. Kalusa
5. The Realization of a Catholic Social Doctrine in the Context of the Rise of Nationalism in Northern Rhodesia in the 1950s ...............................91
Marja Hinfelaar
6. Odd Man Out: Labour, Politics and Dixon Konkola ...................................111
Kenneth P. Vickery

The Unsettled World of Settlers
7. Proletarians in Paradise: The Historiography and Historical Sociology of White Miners on the Copperbelt....141
Ian Phimister
8. Rivers of White: David Livingstone and the 1955 Commemorations in the Lost ‘Henley-upon-Thames of Central Africa’ ...................................161
Joanna Lewis
9. Fears and Fantasies in Northern Rhodesia, 1950–1960 ...............................207
Jan-Bart Gewald
10. Indian Political Activism in Colonial Zambia: The Case of Livingstone’s Indian Traders ...................229
Friday Mufuzi
11. Cinemas, Spices and Sport: Recollections of Hindu Life in 1950s Northern Rhodesia ....................249
Joan M. Haig

Participating Observers
12. Historiography on the Luapula: Ian Cunnison’s ‘fi shing area’, Mweru-Luapula, 1948–1959.......................273
Christopher M. Annear
13. Frances Bolton, Margaret Tibbetts and the US Relations with the Rhodesian Federation, 1950–1960 .......299
Andrew J. DeRoche

About the Authors ....................................................................................................327
Index ..........................................................................................................................329