This book is based on a series of interviews with two prominent figures in recent Zanzibari history, conducted over a period of some ten years. Apart from a 25-page introduction intended to situate the two narratives that follow, the author's voice is largely absent. The texts are thus autobiographical: Burgess's role is limited to rendering the oral texts as written ones, placing many years of reflections and reminiscences into a chronological narrative sequence. It is a credit to him that both stories read seamlessly.

Ali Sultan Issa was shaped by his contacts with the British Communist Party in the late 1950s, and following Zanzibari independence he served as a minister in the revolutionary government. In 1972 he was imprisoned for his alleged role in the assassination of President Karume, and by the time he was released in 1978 his socialist ideals seemed to have dissipated. He moved in the hotel business and became – in his own words – a member of the petite bourgeoisie. Issa does not come over as a man of much integrity for, despite his claims, one is left wondering about the sincerity of his political convictions during the revolutionary period. But perhaps this is also where the real value of the narrative lies: it is the portrait of a man, his strengths and his weaknesses. It is of no surprise that he is both loved and detested in contemporary Zanzibar.

Seif Sharif Hamad is still very much part of contemporary Zanzibari politics, and I suspect his narrative is partly shaped by that fact. It is less confessional than Issa's tale: Hamad has his failings, to be sure, but they are not Issa's warts. Hamad, ten years younger than Issa, was closely involved in the end of the socialist period. Increasing disillusionment with both policies and practice led him to advocate reform, but in the struggle for power between hardliners and reformers that characterised the CCM in the late 1980s, Hamad was removed from office and imprisoned. Tanzania's adoption of multipartyism coincided with his release, and he immediately formed the opposition CUF party, for which he has stood as presidential candidate four times, most recently in 2010.

As Burgess points out, these personal trajectories reflect half a century of Zanzibari political history. However, and slightly curiously, although only ten years separate the two men, there is little intersection of the two lives: neither speaks much of the other. Nevertheless, the two narratives provide distinctive and complementary perspectives on the Karume years during which they were politically active: the years between Hamad's political awakening and Issa's imprisonment. The introductory material by Burgess himself concisely but competently provides a framework that contextualises the biographies for those unfamiliar with Zanzibar, while at the same time filling in the relevant details for those who are familiar with the island but less so with the finer details of recent political history. As a result the book will be of interest to, and accessible to, all audiences.