The Idea of Development in Africa

Corrie Decker is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Mobilizing Zanzibari Women: The Struggle for Respectability and Self-Reliance (2014) and numerous articles in the Journal of Women's History, the International Journal of African Historical Studies, Past and Present, Africa Today, and the American Historical Review. She is currently writing a book on the history of puberty in twentieth-century East Africa. Elisabeth McMahon is Associate Professor of History at Tulane University, Louisiana. She is the author of Slavery and Emancipation in Islamic East Africa: From Honor to Respectability (2013) and numerous articles in International Labor and Working-Class History, Slavery and Abolition, International Journal of African Historical Studies, Women's History Review, Journal of Women's History, Africa Today, Journal of Social History and Quaker History. She led the digital humanities project, the African Letters Project in conjunction with the Amistad Research Center, making letters written by Africans during decolonization accessible globally.

• Introduction; Part I. Origins of the Development Episteme: 1. From Progress to Development; 2. Knowledge and the Development Episteme; 3. Eugenics and Racism in the Development Episteme; 4. Decolonizing the Idea of Development; Part II. Implementation of the Development Episteme: 5. The Salvation of Science; 6. Challenges to Development; 7. From Modernization to Structural Adjustment; 8. The New Missionaries; Part III. Development 'Problems': 9. Reshaping Huts and Homes; 10. Lessons in Separate Development; 11. Capitalizing on Dis-Ease; 12. Manufacturing Modernization; 13. African Critiques of the Development Episteme.

'A smart, sweeping history that explores how colonial ideas about Africa and Africans - including moral imperatives, the inventions of 'tribes,' and scientific racism - shaped development paradigms and projects across the continent. The Idea of Development in Africa is a 'must-teach' book for courses on Africa and in development studies.' Dorothy Hodgson, Brandeis University