Customer Reviews

With Sword and Chain in Lusaka: A Londoner's Life in Zambia 1948-1972

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Reading this book took me back to a brief, but wonderful era in a now extinct place. The author's involvement in the administrative affairs of Lusaka gave him an in-depth knowledge of the many interesting events that were taking place during the 1950's and 60's. Most of all Richard Sampson has placed on record an account of an extraordinary era in the history of a remarkable country; Northern Rhodesia.

The author is a Britisher who, after World War II, moved to what was then Northern Rhodesia where he lived for almost a quarter century.

As an accountant, businessman and mayor, he witnessed (and chronicles) the transformation of Northern Rhodesia (ruled by Europeans) into part of Zambia (ruled by native peoples.)

The transition happened almost 50 years ago and it's a tale probably unknown or at least forgotten in the US (where the author eventually ends up). Because this account is personal and somewhat short (2,115 Kindle locations), we don't have a comprehensive report of Zambia's birth and the surrounding issues; the story is his perspective.

Still, why he left England (and the conditions there pre- and post-war), the years in Northern Rhodesia, and why he had to leave Zambia are a stirring tale.