The Peace Corps in Tanzania: A History

An examination of one of the earliest Peace Corps programs in Africa

In 1961, the first group of Peace Corps volunteers in Tanzania--surveyors, engineers, and geologists--arrived in Dar es Salaam with three core objectives: meet the newly independent country’s needs for trained personnel, promote a better understanding of Americans, and promote a better understanding of the people served by the volunteers. The Peace Corps in Tanzania traces the program’s progress, successes, and challenges, including analysis of the tensions that led to the program’s closure in 1969. The program eventually resumed in 1980, which required significant changes in US-Tanzania relations.

Lawrence E. Y. Mbogoni depicts a range of volunteers’ experiences, including anecdotes about their training, their work and social lives in Tanzania, and how they readjusted to life back in America following their service. Although there are several memoirs by returned Peace Corps volunteers from Tanzania, this is the first scholarly study of the agency’s history in Tanzania more broadly. Mbogoni draws extensively on archival resources, Tanzanian newspapers and government reports, and interviews he conducted with returned volunteers. The result is an engaging account of volunteers’ contributions and a critical assessment of how successfully the Peace Corps has met its objectives.

Lawrence E. Y. Mbogoni is the author of several books, including British Military Expeditions and the Conquest of Africa: 1824-1920 and Miscegenation, Identity, and Status in Colonial Africa: Intimate Colonial Encounters. For many years, he was a professor of history at William Paterson University of New Jersey. He previously taught at Luther College and the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.