Combining demography, history, and sociology, this book offers a new methodology for the study of African fertility and a new definition of the role of household demography in agrarian economies. It provides a useful perspective on the ways in which human reproduction both reflects upon and reacts with the reproduction trends of society and economy in coastal Tanzania. Part I asserts a political economy of changing fertility; Part II studies the implications of demographic patterns for people's work-loads and economic fortunes at the individual and household levels.

The book draws on a substantial body of research to argue that much thinking on Africa--from both official donors and from international NGOs alike--is flawed, because that thinking either does not recognize or does not draw out the implications of the central role of politics and the state in Africa's development problems.

In almost all African countries the political elites are uninterested in leading a development process. Western donor countries and institutions have largely turned a blind eye to this situation, and indeed aid has become an important resource in maintaining...