'Modernisation' was one of the most pervasive ideologies of the twentieth century. Focusing on a case study of the Kariba Dam in central-southern Africa and based on an array of primary sources and interviews the book provides a nuanced understanding of development in the turbulent late 1950s, a time when most colonies moved towards independence.
The great strength of this study is the author's success in writing an 'entangled history' of Kariba, which emphasizes the ways that the ideas, practices, strategies, and understandings of the competing protagonists are constructed as part of a set cross-cultural interactions located within an asymmetrical field of power. - Allen Isaacman, African Studies Quarterly
