Mr. Rotberg has seen things which no other historian has seen
before—in particular, files relating to all the different kinds of
local welfare and other associations of the 1930s and ’40s out of
which the nationalist politics of the 1950s and ’60s emerged. This
is exciting stuff, because it shows in convincing detail how far,
when the moment for action came, the nationalist leaders were able
to build upon an existing network of local associations in which
the germ of nationalism was already present. Those who still
believe that African nationalism was the work of a handful of
unrepresentative agitators should read Rotberg’s book and think
again… Rotberg has written a story of which every Malawian and
Zambian will feel proud.
*New York Review of Books*
No recent study of African nation-making is fuller of fine and
finely organized detail.
*New York Times Book Review*
Professor Rotberg has given students of African history a detailed
and thoroughly documented study of the creation of Malawi and
Zambia and much information on the formation and collapse of the
Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. No other scholar has written
so full and reliable an account of this recent and complex history.
Rotberg had access to hitherto unused official archives and to
private correspondence, sources that he supplemented by interviews
with many of the European and African participants in the vents of
the last decades of a century of history. No one can read this
story without being impressed by the dizzy speed of change in
Africa.
*American Historical Review*
Not only has [Rotberg] written a book that will be of value for
years to come—he has written it well! It is the rare historian who
so happily combines impressive documentation with a fluent
style.
*Africa Today*
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