Includes bibliographical references (pages 377-408) and index.

Meanings of development in twentieth-century colonialism. From dead end to new lease of life : development in south-eastern Tanganyika from the late 1930s to the 1950s / Juhani Koponen ; Developing 'Portuguese Africa' in late colonialism : confronting discourses / Cláudia Castelo ; A history of maendeleo : the concept of 'development' in Tanganyika's late colonial public sphere / Emma Hunter -- Economic and rural development. The 'private' face of African development planning during the Second World War / Billy Frank ; Ecological concepts of development? : the case of colonial Zambia / Sven Speek ; Developming rural Africa : rural development discourse in colonial Zimbabwe, 1944-79 / E. Kushinga Makombe ; The tractor as a tool of development? : the mythologies and legacies of mechanissed tropical agriculture in French Africa, 1944-56 / Céline Pessis -- Social development and welfare. From precondition to goal of development : health and medicine in the planning and politics of British Tanganyika / Walter Bruchhausen ; 'Keystone of progress' and mise en valeur d'ensemble : British and French colonial discourses on education for development in the interwar period / Walter Schicho ; Development and education in British colonial Nigeria, 1940-55 / Uyilawa Usuanlele ; Motherhood, morality, and social order : gender and development discourse and practice in late colonial Africa / Barbara Bush -- Discourse-analytical and literary perspectives on colonial development. The world the Portuguese developed : racial politics, luso-tropicalism and development discourse in late Portuguese colonialism / Caio Simões de Araújo and Iolande Vasile ; The notion of 'développement' in French colonial discourses : changes indiscursive practices and their solcial implications / Françoise Dufour ; Developing Africa in the colonial imageination : European and African narrative writing of the interwar period / Martina Kopf -- Epilogue : taking stock, looking ahead / Joseph M. Hodge.

'Developing Africa' investigates development in British, French and Portuguese colonial Africa during the last decades of colonial rule.