Zanzibar : the hundred days revolution / Helen-Louise Hunter.

Includes index.

Zanzibar's political awakening : 1955-62 -- The road to revolution : 1963 -- The Zanzibar coup : January 1964 -- The People's Republic of Zanzibar : January-April 1964 -- Union with Tanganyika : April 1964 -- Tanzania : one year later.

In the mid-20th century the tiny island of Zanzibar off the east coast of Africa was probably best known for two things: for producing over 95 percent of the world's cloves and for being one of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour's famous "Road" movies. In the short space of five months all that would change as the peace and quiet of the remote island of Zanzibar would be rocked by an unexpected revolution that catapulted the country onto the world's headlines. In December 1963 Zanzibar became an independent nation after 73 years of British rule. Three weeks later, on January 12, 1964, its Arab-dominated government was overthrown in a coup d'etat. The new African-dominated government of an independent Zanzibar lasted just three months. In April 1964 the presidents of Tanganyika and Zanzibar announced a secret agreement to form a union of the two countries and the birth of a new state to be known as Tanzania. This account was originally written about a year after the coup as a classified report of the U.S. Government. It has been recently declassified, and is being published without significant changes to the original manuscript.