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Acknowledgments It may not “take a village” to produce and publish many kinds of books. This one, however, could not have come into being without the assistance, collaboration, and support of many colleagues and friends from three continents. The project began through my relationship with my friend and colleague, James Giblin, and his wife Blandina. The Giblins, and the community of friends they welcome into their home in Segelea, have been a source of intellectual engagement and friendship for many years. It was due to them that I first met and interviewed Philemon Kaduma in Mbeya in 1998. My conversations with Mr. Kaduma launched this book project, and I am indebted to him for the knowledge and wisdom he has shared with me, and for the friendship I have been blessed to have with him and his family. Mr. Kaduma introduced me to others who made substantial contributions to this book in its early stages, in particular Raphael Chawala. During a subsequent field trip to Tanzania in 2000, Du Jian of the Chinese Railway Expert Team generously shared with me important background information about the project, in addition to stories about his own personal experiences. These conversations persuaded me that this was a project worth undertaking. In Tanzania I have been fortunate to work and collaborate with a community of scholars at the University of Dar es Salaam who have had a strong influence on my thinking about the history of TAZARA and Tanzanian history more generally. I am especially thankful to have had the opportunity to present my work at the university on more than one occasion, and appreciate the intellectual engagement I have had x   Acknowledgments with faculty and students. I am especially grateful for the friendship and collegiality of Yusufu Lawi, Fred Kaijage, Isaria Kimambo, Eginald Mihanjo, and Rehema Nchimbi in the history department. Much of what I know about the practice of African history was learned during my dissertation research in 1990–91; both Seth Nyagava and Nestor Luanda taught me important lessons that have stayed with me. George Ambindwile has been an invaluable research assistant in the archives and around town during the pursuit of elusive research materials. Adrian Chamwela Mgulambwa made sure we got there safely. In the department of sociology Simeon Mesaki has been a longtime friend and shared his unpublished reports and documents with me. I owe a very special thanks to my friend Mrs. Grace Mshigeni, who has supported and encouraged me in so many ways all these years. During the many years of fieldwork that we carried out in the TAZARA “passenger belt,” our research team made our base in Ifakara at the Ifakara Health Research and Development Center (IHRDC). This center became our home in Tanzania, and we were privileged to benefit from the research-friendly amenities and also from the opportunity to engage with other field researchers based there. I am grateful to Hassan Mshinda, Rose Nathan, David and Joanna Schellenberg, and Hajo and Adriana Tami, who were among the many scholars we interacted with. The staff also made a great difference in our lives during fieldwork, and Veronica Mkopi was an especially important person to us not only at the center but also on our numerous field trips. Our field research team included three invaluable assistants. George Mwombeta assisted with life history interviews; Onesmo Kwawira painstakingly collected parcel receipts data from the TAZARA stations; and Jesse Grossman piloted and completed the comparison of landscape cover change using satellite images. Each of these three individuals contributed a significant part of the primary evidence for this book. I would also like to thank the TAZARA employees who gave me guidance and assistance during the project. The TAZARA public relations managers at headquarters in Dar es Salaam that worked with me, Conrad Simuchile and Mwase Lundu, and also James Mwitangeti, were very helpful to me. Mr. Nalitolela gave me guidance and assistance at TAZARA headquarters on many occasions. Many individual stationmasters and other TAZARA personnel in Tanzania and in Zambia have also made this project possible. In China, I have been fortunate to have developed relationships of friendship and collegiality with scholars from the Institute for West Asian and African Studies (IWAAS) at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. This friendship began when Yao Guimei first invited me to give a talk on my TAZARA research at IWAAS in November 2003. Since that time I have appreciated the generosity and assistance [3.145.12.242] Project MUSE (2024-04-25...

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