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E-book
Author Tischler, Julia

Title Light and power for a multiracial nation : the Kariba Dam scheme in the Central African Federation / Julia Tischler
Published Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

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Description 1 online resource
Series Cambridge imperial and post-colonial studies series
Cambridge imperial and post-colonial studies series.
Contents PART I: PLANNING KARIBA -- 1. Global High Modernism and the Kariba Dam Scheme -- 2. 'Scientific' Decision-Making? -- 3. Developing a Powerful White Nation -- 4. Negotiating Development: the Kariba Loan Talks -- PART II: PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING THE RESETTLEMENT -- 5. African Development and the Resettlement Question -- 6. A Dam Against the 'Primitive': White Discourse about the Gwembe Tonga -- 7. Renegotiating African Development: the Resettlement in Northern Rhodesia -- 8. The 'Efficiency' of Settler Rule: the Resettlement in Southern Rhodesia -- PART III: INTERVENING IN THE KARIBA DAM PROJECT -- 9. In the Middle of Development: Hezekiah Habanyama and the Gwembe Tonga Native Authority -- 10. Struggling with Development: the Perspectives of the Gwembe Tonga -- 11. A Black Dam for the People: Nationalist and Left-wing Critiques -- PART IV: BUILDING THE KARIBA DAM -- 12. A Microcosm of the Modern Nation: Controlling the Kariba Construction Site -- 13. Coping, Protesting, Improving their Lives: Kariba's Workers -- PART V: THE END OF JOINT DEVELOPMENT: PLANNING LAKE KARIBA
Summary The Kariba Dam, stretching across the Zambezi River between today's Zambia and Zimbabwe, was one of the most famous development projects in Africa in the late 1950s. As a producer of abundant and cheap power, Kariba was to boost the economy of the newly established Central African Federation. The book shows how the dam project crystallised both the hopes and the flaws of the Federation, a highly controversial experiment of 'multiracial' nation-building by which the British colonial power meant to appease both settler and African aspirations for independence. The author sketches the perspectives of a great variety of people involved in the Kariba project, including World Bank experts, colonial administrators, the local population, nationalist politicians, and the workers building the dam. By drawing out what these different groups imagined a 'developed nation' to be like and how they tried to put their visions into practice, the study provides a nuanced understanding of one of the most pervasive ideologies of the twentieth century. Refraining from both uncritical praise and blanket condemnations, the author draws out the fundamental ambivalence at the heart of modernisation, oscillating between empowerment and domination
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Subject Dams -- Economic aspects -- Zambia
Dams -- Economic aspects -- Zimbabwe
Dams -- Social aspects
African history -- Modern period, c 1500 onwards -- Africa.
History: specific events & topics -- Modern period, c 1500 onwards -- Africa.
National liberation & independence, post-colonialism -- Modern period, c 1500 onwards -- Africa.
TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING -- Electrical.
History.
Dams -- Economic aspects
Dams -- Social aspects
SUBJECT Kariba Dam (Zambia and Zimbabwe) http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2006008570
Subject Africa -- Kariba Dam
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781137268778
1137268778
1349443611
9781349443611