Originally published in 1933, at the time of its publication, Modern Industry and the African represented a progressive, essentially liberal approach to the development of the Copperbelt of Northern Rhodesia and the response thereto of the Christian Church. It expressed the authors' very real fears that urbanization would irreparably damage the foundations of indigenous life and demonstrated their implicit faith in the virtues of a past 'golden age' of rural stability. In many respects the study was a landmark, beginning a new trend of investigation into 'sociological' aspects of African administration.

The study o f African history as an academic discipline is a rather new field and one that still has its detractors both w ithin and outside academics. This collection o f articles highlights for students and scholars the modern era in African history. It brings together published research on the colonial era in Africa, an era relatively brief but one that saw dramatic change in African societies.

A history of the development of the Roman Catholic Church in Bembaland (North Eastern Zambia) from its missionary foundations in 1891 to the eve of national independence.

When we donate our unwanted clothes to charity, we rarely think about what will happen to them: who will sort and sell them, and finally, who will revive and wear them. In this fascinating look at the multibillion dollar secondhand clothing business, Karen Tranberg Hansen takes us around the world from the West, where clothing is donated, through the salvage houses in North America and Europe, where it is sorted and compressed, to Africa, in this case, Zambia. There it enters the dynamic world of Salaula, a Bemba term that means "to rummage through a pile." Essential for the African economy, the secondhand clothing business is wildly popular, to the point of threatening the indigenous textile industry. But, Hansen shows, wearing secondhand clothes is about much more than imitating Western styles. It is about taking a garment and altering it to something entirely local, something that adheres to current cultural norms of etiquette. By unraveling how these garments becomes entangled in the economic, political, and cultural processes of contemporary Zambia, Hansen also raises provocative questions about environmentalism, charity, recycling, and thrift.