Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / Stephan F. Miescher, Peter J. Bloom, and Takyiwaa Manuh -- Part one: Modernization and the origins of the package -- After modernization: globalization and the African dilemma / Per cy C. Hintzen -- Modernization theory and the figure of blindness: f ilial reflections / Andrew Apter -- Part two: Media, modernity, a nd modernization -- Film as instrument of modernization and social c hange in Africa: the long view / Rosaleen Smyth -- Mass education , cooperation, and the "African mind" / Aaron Windel -- Is propag anda modernity? Press and radio for "Africans" in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi during World War II and its aftermath / Mhoze Chikowero -- Elocution, Englishness, and empire: film and radio in late colonial Ghana / Peter J. Bloom -- Part three: Infrastructure and effects -- Negotiating modernization: the Kariba Dam project in the Central African Federation, ca. 1954-1960 / Julia Tischler -- "No one sh ould be worse off": the Akosombo Dam, modernization, and the experience of resettlement in Ghana / Stephan F. Miescher -- Radioactive ex cess: modernization as spectacle and betrayal in postcolonial Gabon / Gabrielle Hecht -- Part four: Institutional training in Nkrumah' s Ghana -- Modeling modernity: the brief story of Kwame Nkrumah, a N azi pilot named Hanna, and the wonders of motorless flight / Jean Al lman -- The African personality dances highlife: popular music, urba n youth, and cultural modernization in Nkrumah's Ghana, 1957-1965 / Nate Plageman -- Building institutions for the new Africa: the insti tute of African studies at the University of Ghana / Takyiwaa Manuh -- Part five: Modernization and the literary imagination -- Theat er and the politics of display: The tragedy of King Christophe at Seneg al's first World Festival of Negro Arts / Christina S. McMahon -- Reengaging narratives of modernization in contemporary African lite rature / Nana Wilson-Tagoe -- Between nationalism and Pan-African ism: Ngäugäi wa Thiong®o's theater and the art and politics of moderniz ing African culture / Aida Mbowa.