"This book presents the first truly rounded portrait of Nyerere's early life, from his birth in 1922 until his graduation from Edinburgh in 1952, helping us to see his later political achievements in a new light. It was after returning to Tanganyika that 'Mwalimu' (the teacher) formally entered politics, and led efforts to deliver Tanganyika to independence."--Publishers website.
Nyerere's economic policies, his successes and failures in pursuit of economic development under socialism, are some of the subjects addressed by the author in this book. A Tanzanian himself., he also looks at how life was under Nyerere since the sixties. The work is also a critical examination of the political situation in Tanzania since independence when the country was known as Tanganyika before uniting with Zanzibar. The author also looks at the transition that has taken place in Tanzania from one-party rule to multiparty democracy, and from socialism to capitalism since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. He also takes a critical look at globalization and the negative impact of structural adjustment programmes in Tanzania and Africa as a whole. The work is also a study of Tanzania's history since the advent of colonial rule and of the struggle for independence in one of Africa's largest countries.
In this text, international figures, such as Father Huddleston and Sir Shridath Ramphal, join with Tanzanian scholars to assess, not without criticism, the influential contributions of Julius Nyerere both within his own country and across the Third World. Part 1 provides an overview of the man and his thought. Part 2 focuses on those areas of policy in which Nyerere took a particular interest. Part 3 concentrates on the major social, economic and political issues that have been central to the unique Tanzanian experience - unique because of the man who shaped the first quarter of a century of independence.
With vision, hard-nosed judgment, and biting humor, Julius Nyerere confronted the challenges of nation building in modern Africa. Constructing Tanzania out of a controversial Cold War union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar, Nyerere emerged as one of independent Africa’s most influential leaders. He pursued his own brand of African socialism, called Ujamaa, with unquestioned integrity, and saw it profoundly influence movements to end white minority rule in Southern Africa. Yet his efforts to build a peaceful nation created a police state, economic crisis, and a war with Idi Amin’s Uganda. Eventually—unlike most of his contemporaries—Nyerere retired voluntarily from power, paving the way for peaceful electoral transitions in Tanzania that continue today. Based on multinational archival research, extensive reading, and interviews with Nyerere’s family and colleagues, as well as some who suffered under his rule, Paul Bjerk provides an incisive and accessible biography of this African leader of global importance. Recognizing Nyerere’s commitment to participatory government and social equality while also confronting his authoritarian turns and policy failures, Bjerk offers a portrait of principled leadership under the difficult circumstances of postcolonial Africa.
This work looks at some of the major policy initiatives and achievements by Nyerere, a leader whose humility and dedication led millions of ordinary people in Tanzania and elsewhere to identify with him, and pay him the highest tribute by simply saying, He was one of us.
Drawing on a wide range of oral and written sources, this book tells the story of Tanzania's socialist experiment: the ujamaa villagization initiative of 1967-75. Inaugurated shortly after independence, ujamaa ('familyhood' in Swahili) both invoked established socialist themes and departed from the existing global repertoire of development policy, seeking to reorganize the Tanzanian countryside into communal villages to achieve national development. Priya Lal investigates how Tanzanian leaders and rural people creatively envisioned ujamaa and documents how villagization unfolded on the ground, without affixing the project to a trajectory of inevitable failure. By forging an empirically rich and conceptually nuanced account of ujamaa, African Socialism in Postcolonial Tanzania restores a sense of possibility and process to the early years of African independence, refines prevailing theories of nation building and development, and expands our understanding of the 1960s and 70s world.
