Verandahs of Power
Colonialism and Space in Urban Africa

Cloth $39.95L   |   ISBN 0-8156-2972-9   |   2003

Paper $19.95s   |   ISBN 0-8156-2997-4   |   2003

Focuses on the creation of, and struggle over, urban order in four cities in Eastern and Southern Africa, Nairobi, Lusaka, Zanzibar, and Lilongwe, and the workings of power in the planning process for each city.

Reviews
"Myers draws on individual life stories to demonstrate how British colonial and postcolonial elites employed planning and design in African cities as a tool for shaping physical spaces of city life to create consent and domination. He carefully examines the planning experiences of four African cities?Nairobi, Lusaka, Zanzibar and Lilongwe?and meticulously weaves together three different 'verandahs of power' represented by the life stories of Eric Dutton (a colonial elite), Ajit Singh Hoogan (a colonized middle), and Ng'ambo (the African urban majority). . . . The book is well written and provides an excellent account of the history of urban planning in Africa. . . . Highly Recommended."
Choice

"Garth Myers must be applauded for this very useful and welcome addition to the literature on Africa's urban history. It is a very well-written book, thoroughly researched with rich primary material and appropriate illustrations. The book would appeal to scholars and students in geography, history, planning, architecture and politics."
Progress in Human Geography

Description
Garth Andrew Myers' work makes a significant contribution to a long tradition of research on colonial cities and a multidisciplinary body of literature on urban legacies of colonialism. He examines both colonial rule and postcolonial inheritance in these cities, tracing the legacies of colonialism in different and divergent postcolonial settingsa revolutionary left-wing socialist state (Zanzibar) and a reactionary right-wing dictatorship (Malawi).

In addition to the examination of urban plans and the African urban majority's responses to them, the book traces the experience of the urban planning process through three different "verandahs of power," or levels of class depiction: the colonial power, the colonized middle, and the urban majority. Interspersed with personal stories, this book illuminates our understanding of the workings of power in African cities by addressing human experiences of that power.

6 x 9, 224 pages, 16 photographs, works cited, index

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