Both historians and the East African public in general have largely forgotten that units of the newly independent Tanganyikan, Ugandan and Kenyan armies mutinied in rapid succession during the last week of January 1964. This is largely due to the success of Julius Nyerere, Milton Obote and Jomo Kenyatta in portraying the unrest as the work of a handful of disgruntled and self-interested African soldiers (askaris). All three leaders, avowed anti-colonial nationalists, downplayed the seriousness of the incidents to draw public attention away from the embarrassing reality that they needed military aid from Great Britain, their former imperial ruler, to restore order.

At the time, however, the mutinies seemed far more threatening. In 1960, the bloody mutiny by Congo's Force Publique plunged the newly independent country into turmoil. In early 1964, the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai had recently concluded an African tour by pronouncing that the continent was ripe for revolution, and, once the mutinies broke out, the conservative British newspaper the Daily Telegraph claimed that they were the work of communist agents. More recently, historians affiliated with the Tanzanian People's Defence Force have alternatively charged that Western agents intentionally provoked the askaris into mutiny to provide Britain with an excuse to reclaim its East African colonies.

Written by Tony Laurence, a veteran of the Royal Navy who took part in the operations that disarmed the Tanganyikan mutineers, and Christopher MacRae, a former member of the British diplomatic staff in Dar es Salaam, The Dar Mutiny of 1964 presents a firsthand perspective on the events in Tanganyika. It is written for the general British reader, and there is a great deal of Tom Clancyish material about the operational details of launching a commando raid from an aircraft carrier. This is actually rather interesting, but the book's other fixation on the safety of the British expatriate community in Dar es Salaam is a bit overblown. Memories of the Congolese mutiny were still relatively fresh in 1964, and Tanganyikan politicians and labor leaders had pressed Nyerere to ‘Africanize’ the public and private sectors with seconded foreign experts. But, at least in hindsight, there were no indications that Tanganyikans harbored lethal animosities towards the relatively small group of Europeans who remained behind after independence.

From an Africanist historical perspective, the real payoff of this book is that it is a modern incarnation of the colonial, or in this case postcolonial, memoir. Laurence and MacRae are frank, honest and critical in their assessment of the causes and implications of the Tanganyikan mutiny. Their perspective is openly and unapologetically British, and those hoping to learn more about how Tanganyikans viewed the events of January 1964 will have to look elsewhere. Nevertheless, this book makes a useful contribution to historical debates about the causes of the mutinies. The authors demonstrate conclusively that the mutinies caught British diplomatic and military personnel by surprise, and their detailed behind-the-scenes account of the operations to disarm the rebellious askaris effectively rebuts accusations that the British government had opportunistically provoked the revolts. Moreover, they do a good job of disproving the Daily Telegraph's libelous accusation that Oscar Kambona, the Tanganyikan Defense Minister, had instigated the mutiny as an agent of communist China. They also provide useful firsthand perspectives from the men who were on the spot at the end of empire, and they have been able to get many key British participants in the operations to speak candidly. Most of this material is not currently available in published form. Finally, The Dar Mutiny of 1964 provides an interesting inside look into the planning and execution of the often unnoticed small-scale, highly improvisational, military operations that accompanied African independence.