Revolution in Zanzibar: An American's Cold War Tale

Don Petterson. Revolution in Zanzibar: An American's Cold War Tale. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2002. xv + 277 pp. Maps. Photographs. Notes. Index. $28.00. Cloth.

The memoirs of Don Petterson, a career diplomat, provide the backdrop for this eyewitness account of the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964, in which a loose coalition of African laborers and farmers, trade union organizers, and avid Marxists wrested power from the East African islands' postcolonial Arab-dominated government. Petterson served as the islands' vice-consul during the years leading up to the revolution, and he holds the distinction of having been the only American remaining in Zanzibar throughout the uprising and in the postrevolution period.

Petterson's opening passage, a rather sensationalist scene of mass murder and mayhem witnessed by twenty-two frightened Americans, gives readers their first glimpse of the 1964 revolution. The remainder of the book's introductory chapter provides a concise history of Zanzibar, beginning with the interaction of Arab traders with the islands' native inhabitants, followed by the establishment of the clove industry, the slave trade, and Omani Arab colonial rule. This...