A History of Zimbabwe
A History of Zimbabwe

Author: Alois S. Mlambo

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-04-07

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1139867520

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The first single-volume history of Zimbabwe with detailed coverage from pre-colonial times to the present, this book examines Zimbabwe's pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial social, economic and political history and relates historical factors and trends to recent developments in the country. Zimbabwe is a country with a rich history, dating from the early San hunter-gatherer societies. The arrival of British imperial rule in 1890 impacted the country tremendously, as the European rulers exploited Zimbabwe's resources, giving rise to a movement of African nationalism and demands for independence. This culminated in the armed conflict of the 1960s and 1970s and independence in 1980. The 1990s were marked by economic decline and the rise of opposition politics. In 1999, Mugabe embarked on a violent land reform program that plunged the nation's economy into a downward spiral, with political violence and human rights violations making Zimbabwe an international pariah state. This book will be useful to those studying Zimbabwean history and those unfamiliar with the country's past.

Voices from the Rocks
Voices from the Rocks

Author: T. O. Ranger

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 9780852556047

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The Matopos Hills of Zimbabwe have been occupied by humanity for some 40,000 years. They are the home for a number of shrines, and have become a scene of symbolic, ideological, political and armed conflict between the Shona, Ndebele and Europeans for more than 100 years. Many questions in Matopos history are crucial to the history of Matabeleland as a whole, and some central to the history of Zimbabwe: the right relationship of men and women to the land; the nature of culture; the dynamics of ethnicity; the roots of dissidence and violence; and the historical bases of underdevelopment. North America: Indiana U Press; Zimbabwe: Baobab JOINT WINNER OF THE TREVOR REESE MEMORIAL PRIZE 2001

Becoming Zimbabwe. A History from the Pre-colonial Period to 2008
Becoming Zimbabwe. A History from the Pre-colonial Period to 2008

Author: Brian Raftopoulos

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2009-09-15

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1779221215

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Becoming Zimbabwe is the first comprehensive history of Zimbabwe, spanning the years from 850 to 2008. In 1997, the then Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Morgan Tsvangirai, expressed the need for a 'more open and critical process of writing history in Zimbabwe. ...The history of a nation-in-the-making should not be reduced to a selective heroic tradition, but should be a tolerant and continuing process of questioning and re-examination.' Becoming Zimbabwe tracks the idea of national belonging and citizenship and explores the nature of state rule, the changing contours of the political economy, and the regional and international dimensions of the country's history. In their Introduction, Brian Raftopoulos and Alois Mlambo enlarge on these themes, and Gerald Mazarire's opening chapter sets the pre-colonial background. Sabelo Ndlovu tracks the history up to WW11, and Alois Mlambo reviews developments in the settler economy and the emergence of nationalism leading to UDI in 1965. The politics and economics of the UDI period, and the subsequent war of liberation, are covered by Joesph Mtisi, Munyaradzi Nyakudya and Teresa Barnes. After independence in 1980, Zimbabwe enjoyed a period of buoyancy and hope. James Muzondidya's chapter details the transition 'from buoyancy to crisis', and Brian Raftopoulos concludes the book with an analysis of the decade-long crisis and the global political agreement which followed.

Lion Songs
Lion Songs

Author: Banning Eyre

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2015-05-01

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0822375427

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Like Fela Kuti and Bob Marley, singer, composer, and bandleader Thomas Mapfumo and his music came to represent his native country's anticolonial struggle and cultural identity. Mapfumo was born in 1945 in what was then the British colony of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The trajectory of his career—from early performances of rock 'n' roll tunes to later creating a new genre based on traditional Zimbabwean music, including the sacred mbira, and African and Western pop—is a metaphor for Zimbabwe's evolution from colony to independent nation. Lion Songs is an authoritative biography of Mapfumo that narrates the life and career of this creative, complex, and iconic figure. Banning Eyre ties the arc of Mapfumo's career to the history of Zimbabwe. The genre Mapfumo created in the 1970s called chimurenga, or "struggle" music, challenged the Rhodesian government—which banned his music and jailed him—and became important to Zimbabwe achieving independence in 1980. In the 1980s and 1990s Mapfumo's international profile grew along with his opposition to Robert Mugabe's dictatorship. Mugabe had been a hero of the revolution, but Mapfumo’s criticism of his regime led authorities and loyalists to turn on the singer with threats and intimidation. Beginning in 2000, Mapfumo and key band and family members left Zimbabwe. Many of them, including Mapfumo, now reside in Eugene, Oregon. A labor of love, Lion Songs is the product of a twenty-five-year friendship and professional relationship between Eyre and Mapfumo that demonstrates Mapfumo's musical and political importance to his nation, its freedom struggle, and its culture.

The Shona Peoples
The Shona Peoples

Author: M. F. C. Bourdillon

Publisher:

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13:

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Newly reissued, this book is still regarded as one of the best synthesis of ethnographic research undertaken amongst the Shona people, taking indigenous religion and culture as a starting point. The author, a renowned anthropologist and sociologist of Zimbabwe, examines the historical background and sources of Shona history from the fifteenth century. He details, from anthropological perspectives, kinship and village organisation including patrilineal kinship, Shona marriage and the position of women in Shona society. The author explores the subsistence and cash economies of the Shona peoples, their contribution to commercial farming, their use of land, and their function as a migrant labour force. Further sections focus on chiefship, courts; and interpretations of sickness, personal misfortune, witchcraft, death and the afterlife. The final sections of the book consider the functions of traditional religion at family and tribal levels; the interface between traditional and new religions; and rural and urban influences, amongst the Shona people.

Zimbabwean Transitions
Zimbabwean Transitions

Author: Mbongeni Z. Malaba

Publisher: Rodopi

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9042023767

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This collection of essays on Zimbabwean literature brings together studies of both Rhodesian and Zimbabwean literature, spanning different languages and genres. It charts the at times painful process of the evolution of Rhodesian/ Zimbabwean identities that was shaped by pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial realities. The hybrid nature of the society emerges as different writers endeavour to make sense of their world. Two essays focus on the literature of the white settler. The first distils the essence of white settlers' alienation from the Africa they purport to civilize, revealing the delusional fixations of the racist mindset that permeates the discourse of the "white man's burden" in imperial narratives. The second takes up the theme of alienation found in settler discourse, showing how the collapse of the white supremacists' dream when southern African countries gained independence left many settlers caught up in a profound identity crisis. Four essays are devoted to Ndebele writing. They focus on the praise poetry composed for kings Mzilikazi and Lobengula; the preponderance of historical themes in Ndebele literature; the dilemma that lies at the heart of the modern Ndebele identity; and the fossilized views on gender roles found in the works of leading Ndebele novelists, both female and male. The essays on English-language writing chart the predominantly negative view of women found in the fiction of Stanley Nyamfukudza, assess the destabilization of masculine identities in post-colonial Zimbabwe, evaluate the complex vision of life and "reality" in Charles Mungoshi's short stories as exemplified in the tragic isolation of many of his protagonists, and explore Dambudzo Marechera's obsession with isolated, threatened individuals in his hitherto generally neglected dramas. The development of Shona writing is surveyed in two articles: the first traces its development from its origins as a colonial educational tool to the more critical works of the post-1980 independence phase; the second turns the spotlight on written drama from 1968 when plays seemed divorced from the everyday realities of people's lives to more recent work which engages with corruption and the perversion of the moral order. The volume also includes an illuminating interview with Irene Staunton, the former publisher of Baobab Books and now of Weaver Press.