In September 2011, Zambia was at the center of media attention, and for the right kind of reasons, when Michael Sata replaced the sitting president Rupiah Banda. Thus, Zambia provided one of the rare examples of an opposition candidate actually winning an election. More importantly, it passed the true test of democracy when the incumbent conceded defeat and stepped down graciously. Previously, in 1991, Kenneth Kaunda had made history by being the first autocrat on the African continent who declared a democratic election and then proceeded to lose the vote resoundingly. This makes Zambia perhaps an unusual case, but certainly an interesting one for a history of opposition politics. Many political scientists and political anthropologists have studied Zambia over the years. With this book, Miles Larmer provides a welcome historical study of postcolonial politics in Zambia.

Larmer challenges the myth of the supremacy of the ruling party in Zambia in the postcolonial period. The United National Independence Party (UNIP) ruled Zambia between 1964 and 1991 under Kenneth Kaunda, and Larmer argues that previous historical studies have tended to confirm a narrative of nationalist unity and consensual decision making during this period. Larmer rejects these nationalist historiographies and, in particular, argues that the declaration of a one-party state in 1972 was not an expression of popular will, but a response by UNIP to rising political opposition. Overall, Larmer seeks to add nuance to the different labels used by political scientists to describe the state, such as ‘developmental’, ‘bifurcated’, or ‘neo-patrimonial’ to mention a few, and to move beyond the snapshots provided by electoral studies. To do this it is necessary to chart and interpret political discourse and debates over a longer period of time, interrogating rather than assuming the validity of those descriptions.

Chapter One offers a synthesis of the literature on the late colonial period and reminds readers that at independence Zambia was very far from being a finished product. Larmer thereby sets the stage for the postcolonial contestation of the Zambian state. Chapter Two charts the history of political division during the First Republic (from 1964 until 1972) within the ruling party that lead to a breakaway from UNIP by the United Progressive Party (UPP). He argues that the declaration of a one-party state was a response to this split. Chapter Three describes the disunity under the one party state in the 1970s. Any state would have struggled under the particular economic strain the Zambian state suffered after the collapse of the world market price for copper, however Larmer emphasises that the forces of opposition were not new, but could be traced to the First Republic.

The author focuses on two particular events of well-articulated political opposition. Chapter Four tells the story of the relatively unknown armed opposition called the Mushala Rebellion, unfolding between the mid-1970s and the early 1980s. The chapter gives an account of the rebellion, which was unsuccessful and lacked a programme for political change, yet Larmer argues that it should be understood as ‘a distinctive and significant element of wider opposition’ (p.155). The rebellion showed that the one-party state was not fully entrenched in the Northern Western Region, revealing that UNIP's claim to be speaking on behalf of all Zambian peoples was evidently not true. It is not clear how this particular rebellion ‘paved the way for the pro-democracy movement of 1991’ (p. 132). In Chapter Five, Larmer focuses on the unsuccessful coup attempt in 1980, which he says was indicative of the growing discontent among intellectuals. In Chapter Six and Seven the grip of chronology is loosened. Larmer first reviews the stance of the Zambian state towards Apartheid in South Africa, which he argues was more pragmatically than ideologically motivated. An assessment of the importance of civil society is offered in Chapter Seven.

The substantial contribution of this book is its use of the UNIP party archives (available since 2004) which are complemented by interviews and the biographies of central political actors. The book offers a cogent a history of opposition in Zambia from the late 1960s to the beginning of the 1990s. It does not quite live up to the full title, however, as the comparative issues raised in the introduction, epilogue, and conclusion would require further expansion throughout the chapters to really offer a full historical reappraisal of African politics, but this is a very stimulating and promising start.