First Published in 1966. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In 1895, George Whitehouse arrived at the east African post of Mombasa to perform an engineering miracle: the building of the Mombasa-Nairobi-Lake Victoria Railway – a 600-mile route that was largely unmapped and barely explored. Behind Mombasa lay a scorched, waterless desert. Beyond, a horizonless scrub country climbed toward a jagged volcanic region bisected by the Great Rift Valley. A hundred miles of sponge-like quagmire marked the railway's last lap. The entire right of way bristled with hostile tribes, teemed with lions and breathed malaria. What was the purpose of this 'giant folly' and whom would it benefit? Was it to exploit the rumoured wealth of little-known central African kingdoms? Was it to destroy the slave trade? To encourage commerce and settlement? THE LUNATIC EXPRESS explores the building of this great railway in an earlier Africa of slave and ivory empires, of tribal monarchs and the vast lands that they ruled. Above all, it is the story of the white intruders whose combination of avarice, honour and tenacious courage made them a breed apart.

In preparation for the peace conference that was expected to follow World War I, in the spring of 1917 the British Foreign Office established a special section responsible for preparing background information for use by British delegates to the conference. Kenya, Uganda, and Zanzibar is Number 96 in a series of more than 160 studies produced by the section, most of which were published after the conclusion of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. As explained in an editorial note, in 1920 the British East Africa Protectorate became a colony and its name was changed to Kenya. Unlike the cover and the title page, the text was not updated and still refers to the protectorate. The book contains sections on physical and political geography, political history, social and political conditions, and economic conditions. The historical discussion covers the 19th-century rivalry between Great Britain and Germany for control of territories in East Africa claimed by the sultan of Zanzibar. The Anglo-German agreement of 1886 left the sultan only the island of Zanzibar and a narrow strip of the mainland. The vast hinterland was divided between British and German commercial interests and eventually became, in the south, German East Africa, and in the north, the East Africa Protectorate. In 1890, Zanzibar itself (part of present-day Tanzania) became a British protectorate, in exchange for which Germany acquired the North Sea island of Heligoland. The section on economic conditions discusses the prospects for economic development and profitable investment in Kenya and Uganda, focusing on three factors: useful products, which it concluded existed "in abundance;" labor, which it concluded existed "in bare sufficiency;" and transport facilities, said to be "inadequate for progress." The appendix includes tables of economic statistics and extracts from the Anglo-German agreements relating to these territories.

The middle decades of the twentieth century witnessed the great dramas of the ending of Western imperial rule in Africa and Asia. A series of nationalist onslaughts was launched against the British Empire and these greatly reshaped the modern world. Professor Anthony Low has studied the end of the British Empire and its aftermath for many years. This volume brings together for the first time many of his major essays on the subject.

In this work, Richard E. Mshomba offers an in-depth analysis of economic integration in Africa with a focus on the East African Community (EAC), arguably the most ambitious of all the regional economic blocs currently in existence in Africa. Economic Integration in Africa provides more than just an overview of regional economic blocs in Africa; it also offers a rich historical discussion on the birth and death of the first EAC starting with the onset of colonialism in the 1890s, and a systematic analysis of the birth, growth, and aspirations of the current EAC. Those objectives include forming a monetary union and eventually an East African political federation. This book also examines the African Union's aspirations for continent-wide integration as envisioned by the Abuja Treaty. Mshomba carefully argues that maturity of democracy and good governance in each country are prerequisites for the formation of a viable and sustainable East African federation and genuine continent-wide integration.

"[The author] revisits the diverse eastern region of Africa, including the modern nations of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda."--