During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the fertile islands of Zanzibar and Pemba became of central importance to East Africa’s growing contact with the international economy as the ruling dynasty encouraged trade in cloves, slaves and ivory. This book, first published in 1978, provides an account of the history of Zanzibar from those early days of trade up to independence and the Revolution that removed the Arab ruling class in 1964.

The Swahili coast of Africa is often described as a paragon of transnational culture and racial fluidity. Yet, during a brief period in the 1960s, Zanzibar became deeply divided along racial lines as intellectuals and activists, engaged in bitter debates about their nation's future, ignited a deadly conflict that spread across the island. War of Words, War of Stones explores how violently enforced racial boundaries arose from Zanzibar's entangled history. Jonathon Glassman challenges explanations that assume racial thinking in the colonial world reflected only Western ideas. He shows how Africans crafted competing ways of categorizing race from local tradition and engagement with the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds.

Off the coast of East Africa in the Indian Ocean sits an archipelago known as Zanzibar. It all started ten million years ago when the island of Pemba separated from mainland Africa and then ten thousand years ago, the island of Unguja followed suit. Thus, begins the legend of Zanzibar. For centuries, Zanzibar has been the haven and gateway for explorers including Richard Burton and David Livingstone to penetrate the unknown African Continent. Forward to present day, and it is still possible to experience the unique wildlife whether that is by scuba diving off the coast of a private island, infinite lagoons, visiting mangroves or endemic wild forests; getting lost and immersing yourself into the historical labyrinthine streets of Stonetown. This cluster of islands is at a crossroads of cultures, featuring Omani architecture, Portuguese and British heritages as well as Swahili rituals.

This multi-volume set of reissued classics brings together a collection of titles that touch on many key aspects of the history of the Middle East. From the early explorers of Arabia to the 1979 revolution in Iran, via histories of places as varied as the UAE and Zanzibar, the analysis of Nazi policies towards the Arab East, and a close reading of the territorial foundations of the Gulf states, the books collected here form a wide-ranging and eclectic study of the history of the region.

Zanzibar stands at the center of the Indian Ocean system's involvement in the history of Eastern Africa. This book follows on from the period covered in Abdul Sheriff's acclaimed Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar. The first part of the book shows the transition of Zanzibar from the commercial economy of the nineteenth century to the colonial economy of the twentieth century. The authors begin with the abolition of the slave trade in 1873 that started the process of transformation. They show the transition from slavery to colonial "free" labor, the creation of the capitalist economy, and the resulting social contradictions. They take the history up to formal independence in 1963 with a postscript on the 1964 insurrection. In the second part the authors analyze social classes. The landlords and the merchants were dominant in the commercial empire of the nineteenth century and had difficulties in adjusting to the colonial condition. At the same time the development of capitalist farmers and a fully proletarianized working class was hindered. The conservative administration could not resolve the contradictions of colonial capitalism, and the formation of a united nationalist movement was hampered. This period culminated in the insurrection of 1964, but the revolution could not be consummated without mature revolutionary classes.