Support H-Net | Buy Books Here | Help Support the NBN and NBN en Español on Patreon | Visit New Books Network en Español!
- African Studies
- African American Studies
- American Politics
- American Studies
- American South
- American West
- Asian American Studies
- Australian and New Zealand Studies
- British Studies
- Canadian Studies
- Caribbean Studies
- Central Asian Studies
- Chinese Studies
- East Asian Studies
- Eastern European Studies
- European Politics
- French Studies
- German Studies
- Iberian Studies
- India Studies
- Indian Ocean World
- Iranian Studies
- Irish Studies
- Israel Studies
- Italian Studies
- Japanese Studies
- Korean Studies
- Latino Studies
- Latin American Studies
- Mexican Studies
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Native American Studies
- Pacific Studies
- Polish Studies
- Russian and Eurasian Studies
- Southeast Asian Studies
- South Asian Studies
- Turkish Studies
- Ukrainian Studies
- Western European Studies
- World Affairs
- Animal Studies
- Anthropology
- Archaeology
- Business, Management, and Marketing
- Media
- Critical Theory
- Disability Studies
- Drugs, Addiction and Recovery
- Education
- Economics
- Finance
- Geography
- Gender Studies
- Genocide Studies
- Higher Education
- Human Rights
- Journalism
- Language
- Law
- LGBTQ+ Studies
- National Security
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Policing, Incarceration, and Reform
- Political Science
- Politics & Polemics
- Public Policy
- Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work
- Sociology
- Sound Studies
- Sports
- Urban Studies
- Big Ideas
- Celebration Studies
- Co-Authored
- Cover Story
- Historical Materialism
- History Ex Silo
- Interpretive Political and Social Science
- Invested Investor
- Landscape Architecture
- Late Antiquity
- Mormonism
- NBN Book of the Day
- NBN Seminar
- Postscript: Conversations on Politics and Political Science
- Practical History
- Preparing for Life After Grad School
- Psychology and Climate Change
- Syriac Studies
- The Chair: In The Room at the Fed
- New Books with Miranda Melcher
Dec 18, 2015
Building a Peaceful Nation
Julius Nyerere and the Establishment of Sovereignty in Tanzania, 1960-1964
Summary
Let's begin with what Paul Bjerk's new book isn't: "a biography or evaluation of Julius Nyerere." Instead, according to a letter that Bjerk sent me in advance of our interview, Building a Peaceful Nation: Julius Nyerere and the Establishment of Sovereignty in Tanzania, 1960-1964 (University of Rochester Press, 2015), "focuses on sovereignty and discursive agency as main interpretive lenses" of the peaceful course pursued by Nyerere and his colleagues before and after Tanzanian independence.
Although Nyerere's biography is not the focus of this book (during the interview Bjerk nonetheless tantalizingly alludes to a biographical project currently in the works), Nyerere's formative exposure to British Utilitarianism, and the thought of John Stuart Mill in particular, is unquestionably fundamental to his vision of postcolonial statehood, including his unwavering belief in the one-party state.
The central contention of Building a Peaceful Nation is that meaning-making is at the core of political activity, and that without understanding how meanings are produced through discourse, Tanzania's continental exceptionalism is difficult, if not impossible, to understand. The book, and the interview, explore in depth the development (and pitfalls) of a discursive strategy designed to work at both the grassroots and cosmopolitan levels, produce a sustainable democratic system, and "minimize conflict during the transition to independence", all within a highly complex geopolitical context.
