This book describes the history and challenges facing Tanzania through the voices and memories of Tanzanians and through their visions and ideas about the challenges Tanzania faces today. It is a story of set backs and disappointments, but also of pride. Among those interviewed are leading politicians, activists and researchers, but also ordinary everyday Tanzanians – farmers, workers, grandfathers and grandmothers, active and retired civil servants – are interviewed. The statements are used thematically in chapters forcusing on the various challenges that have faced Tanzania: from insufficient focus on agriculture to the menace of corruption; from socialism to capitalism and from the role of the family to the importance of religion. There is a strong focus on the limitation of independence. Tanzania is independent, but there is no true independence in a globalized world. Knud Vilby is a Danish journalist who has followed developments in Tanzania since the 1960s.