African Underclass

Makes an important contribution to the historiography of urban Africa. ...A masterful survey of Dar es Salaam's underworld. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW African Underclass examines the social, political, and administrative repercussions of rapid urbanization in colonial Dar es Salaam, and the evolution of official policy that viewed urbanization as inextricably linked with social disorder. This policy marginalized numbers of young Africans entering the town - and thus, paradoxically, the policy itself subverted the colonial order. Well researched and sharply written - one of the best and most stimulating accounts of urbanization in Eastern Africa to have been produced in recent years.

• Introduction - 'These great marts of human corruption': urbanisation & urban policy in comparative perspective - I African Urbanisation & Colonial Policy, c. 1919-46 - Dar es Salaam between the wars - The 'town native' & colonial order, c. 1919-38 - The problem of the urban African: accelerating urbanisation & the colonial response, c. 1938-46 - Unemployment, migration & urban order, c. 1938-45 - II Crime In Colonial Dar Es Salaam, 1919-1961 - Interpreting crime in colonial Dar es Salaam - The Dar es Salaam underworld - Legitimate lawlessness? The informal economy in colonial Dar es Salaam - An unwelcome presence: African mobility & urban order - III Urbanisation & Colonial Order, c. 1947-61 Development, diversification & growth: Dar es Salaam in the late-1940s & 1950s - Remaking urban society: stabilisation & citizenship in late colonial Dar es Salaam - Purging the town: the removal of undesirables - Conclusion: urbanisation, development & crime