Dar es Salaam
Histories from an Emerging African Metropolis
From its modest beginnings in the mid-19th century, Dar es Salaam has grown to become one of sub-Saharan Africa’s most important urban centres. A major political, economic and cultural hub, the city stood at the cutting edge of trends that transformed twentieth-century East Africa. Dar es Salaam has recently attracted the attention of a diverse, multi-disciplinary, range of scholars, making it currently one of the continent’s most studied urban centres. This collection from eleven scholars from Africa, Europe, North America and Japan, draws on some of the best of this scholarship and offers a comprehensive, and accessible, survey of the city’s development.
The perspectives include history, musicology, ethnomusicology, culture including popular culture, land and urban economics. The opening chapter offers a comprehensive overview of the history of the city. Subsequent chapters examine Dar es Salaam’s twentieth century experience through the prism of social change and the administrative repercussions of rapid urbanisation; and through popular culture and shifting social relations. The book will be of interest not only to the specialist in urban studies but also to the general reader with an interest in Dar es Salaam’s environmental, social and cultural history.
ISBN 9789987449705 | 279 pages | 216 x 140 mm | 2007 | Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, Tanzania | Paperback
“They cover many economic, demographic and social aspects in the colonial and immediate post-colonial times and provide an import contribution to the basic history of the city...the collection is certainly of a high academic standard, full of useful data and valuable insights...always relevant and interesting. This compendium brings together a great deal of important information.”
- Tanzanian Affairs