Introduction

Tanzania: The Land, Its People and Contemporary Life

Author: David Lawrence

Paperback: 230 pages

Publisher: New Africa Press (28 October 2009)

ISBN-10: 9987930832

ISBN-13: 9789987930838

Introduction

THIS book is a general introduction to Tanzania. It's intended for those who are going to Tanzania for the first time and for anybody else who wants to learn some basic facts about the largest country in East Africa.

The country has a rich history. In fact, if it existed as a nation throughout the centuries when the people in this part of Africa interacted with other cultures and continents as they still do today, it would be one of the oldest countries and nations in the world.

Tanzania also has one of the largest numbers of ethnic groups in Africa together with only a handful of other countries. In fact, only four countries on the entire continent have more than 100 tribes or ethnic groups. Tanzania is one of them.

Readers are going to learn quite a few things about those tribes and where they live in Tanzania.

Also covered in the book are the towns and cities in all the provinces of this large country.

Tanzania also is unique in one fundamental respect. It's the only union of two independent countries ever formed on the continent. And it's the only one that exists today almost half a century after it was formed.

The union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar is one of the subjects covered in the book, and readers are going to learn about one of the most important events in the history of post-colonial Africa on a continent where the quest for unity has remained an elusive dream since independence in the fifties and sixties.

The book also includes a lot of information on Tanganyika just before independence and how it became one of the first countries in Africa to emerge from colonial rule.

Also included is some material on one of the most interesting ethnic groups in African history and how it came into being.

They are the Swahili whose language is also known as Swahili especially among many people around the world who are not native speakers of the language. Among the native speakers, the language is called Kiswahili.

It's the main language spoken in Tanzania and Kenya. It's also spoken in several other countries in east-central Africa. And we are going to learn something about this language which transcends ethnicity.

Kiswahili is not identified with any African tribe, making it a truly Pan-African language building bridges across ethnicity, cultures and nations especially in the eastern part of the continent.