{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.014477211796246649, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.118032786885246, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Book Review: African Socialism in Two Countries

The book, which compares the economic policies followed by Kenya and Tanzania since independence, adds little to the vast body of information already available about the two countries. A detailed analysis of the Kenyan White Paper on African socialism and of Tanzania's Arusha Declaration leads the author to conclude that African socialism was given a very different interpretation in the two countries. In Kenya, socialism was simply the rationalization for a policy of Africanization of existing economic institutions and for development based on individualism and private enterprise. In Tanzania, socialism was interpreted as a strategy for reversing the trend toward private farming encouraged by the colonial administration, and the state as a result played a central role in the development of the economy. The unstartling conclusion reached by Mohiddin is that as a result of its policies Kenya enjoyed a fairly high rate of economic growth, but also experienced the deepening of social inequality; the net effect the author argues is that Kenya cannot be considered a socialist country by any definition of the term. Tanzania on the other hand has developed in a socialist direction, but has sacrificed economic growth in the process. There is nothing new about Mohiddin's conclusion about Kenya. Nobody, to this writer's knowledge, seriously argues that Kenya is a socialist country. On the other hand, there has been considerable controversy concerning the extent to which Tanzania has succeeded in carrying out a socialist transformation, but the author fails to address this issue in depth and adds nothing to the debate. The book may serve as a quick introduction to the two countries for a reader completely unacquainted with them. It will not help a reader even superficially familiar with the issue.