Zambia: The First 50 Years - Softcover

This book makes a substantial and significant contribution to historiography on post-independence Zambia, offering new information and thoughtful analysis. As a book of reflections by an eyewitness, its approach is original, vivid and fresh. Nor is it only a history: for it offers a real, exciting sense of Zambia's future and potential, underpinned by the author's careful interrogation of current policies and plans. Susan Williams, Fellow of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London

On 24 October 1964, the Republic of Zambia was formed, replacing the territory which had formerly been known as Northern Rhodesia. Fifty years on, Andrew Sardanis provides a sympathetic but critical insider's account of Zambia, from independence to the present. He paints a stark picture of Northern Rhodesia at decolonisation and the problems of the incoming government, presented with an immense uphill task of rebuilding the infrastructure of government and administration - civil service, law, local government and economic development. As a friend and colleague of many of the most prominent names in post-independence Zambia - from the presidencies of founding leader Kenneth Kaunda to the incumbent Michael Sata - Sardanis uses his unique eyewitness experience to provide an inside view of a country in transition.