Custodians of the Land: Ecology and Culture in the History of Tanzania

by Gregory Maddox, Isaria N. Kimambo (Contribution by), James L. Giblin (Contribution by), Gregory H. Maddox (Editor), James L. Giblin (Editor)

Overview

Farming and pastoral societies inhabit ever-changing environments. This relationship between environment and rural culture, politics and economy in Tanzania is the subject of this volume which will be valuable in reopening debates on Tanzanian history.

In his conclusion, Isaria N. Kimambo, a founding father of Tanzanian history, reflects on the efforts of successive historians to strike a balance between external causes of change and local initiative in their interpretations of Tanzanian history.

He shows that nationalist and Marxist historians of Tanzanian history, understandably preoccupied through the first quarter-century of the country's post-colonial history with the impact of imperialism and capitalism on East Africa, tended to overlook the initiatives taken by rural societies to transform themselves.

Yet there is good reason for historians to think about the causes of change and innovation in the rural communities of Tanzania, because farming and pastoral people have constantly changed as they adjusted to shifting environmental conditions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780821440056
Publisher:	Ohio University Press
Publication date:	04/15/1996
Series:	Eastern African Studies
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	285
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Gregory H. Maddox is a professor of history at Texas Southern University and author of Sub-Saharan Africa: An Environmental History and coauthor of Practicing History in Central Tanzania: Writing, Memory, and Performance.

James L. Giblin is an associate professor of history at the University of Iowa.

Isaria N. Kimambo is a professor of history at the University of Dar es Salaam.

Table of Contents

Cover Series Page Title Copyright Contents List of Maps, Figures & Tables List of Photographs Abbreviations Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: Custodians of the Land: Ecology & Culture in the History of Tanzania Introduction One: Population: A Dependent Variable Two: Environment & Population Growth: In Ugogo, Central Tanzania Introduction Three: Environmental Control & Hunger: In the Mountains & Plains of Northeastern Tanzania Four: Nature Reorganized: Ecological History in the Plateau Forests of the West Usambara Mountains 1850-1935 Introduction Five: The Precolonial Politics of Disease Control: In the Lowlands of Northeastern Tanzania Six: 'We Don't Want Terraces!': Protest & Identity under the Uluguru Land Usage Scheme Introduction Seven: Environment, Community & History: 'Nature in the Mind': In Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Buha, Western Tanzania Eight: Canoe-Building Under Colonialism: Forestry & Food Policies in the Inner Kilombero Valley 1920-40 Nine: Struggles for the Land: The Political & Moral Economies of Land on Mount Meru Conclusion Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

Contains nine essays addressing the continually changing relationship between environment and rural culture, politics, and the economy in the farming and pastoral societies of Tanzania. Contributors include scholars of African studies, history, and anthropology. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Custodians of the Land goes a long way in helping us define and delimit African environmental history; it offers a full range of empirical evidence as well as a wide range of interpretive possibilities. This book successfully sets a coherent agenda for other national historiographies and strongly attests to the quality of scholarship in the field.”—James C. McCann, Agricultural History

From the Publisher