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Yesterday I spent a happy afternoon in the @ASCLibrary looking through two boxes of material on #Zambia recently donated by Frans Verstraelen. This was a mixture of books, reports, leaflets, and periodicals from the University of Zambia, some of which are now very hard to find.
The focus of much of the books and pamphlets is on Christianity, Christian churches and humanism (the guiding ideology of the country after independence). Several things by and about Kenneth Kaunda as well
As an aside, Henry Meebelo (who was a historian and theoretician of the United National Independence Party) is seriously overdue an intellectual biography.
There was also lots of material about the University of Zambia, from its early years. This is an overview of UNZA in 1971 by then VC Lameck Goma, when UNZA had only 1183 students and 132 graduates.
Now-forgotten material this like (The African University, published by UNZA) would be helpful for contemporary debates about universities in Africa and decolonisation.
Some of this material gives a sense about how prolific the history department at UNZA was in these years. Publications like 'History in Zambia' and 'Zambian Land and Labour' are now difficult to find, but contain valuable articles written by historians trained at UNZA.
The other material includes maps, newspapers, dictionaries, and government reports, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s. It is mostly in English, with some in Dutch.
