Examines Zimbabwe's pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial social, economic and political history and relates historical factors and trends to more recent developments in the country.

It is impossible to understand recent political events in Zimbabwe without insight into the role of Emmerson Mnangagwa. The fall of Robert Mugabe and the inauguration of Emmerson Mnangagwa as Zimbabwe’s new president in November 2017 were events that no one could have predicted. Just three weeks earlier, Mugabe had sacked Mnangagwa as vice-president, a move that seemed to end the long political career of the man known as ‘The Crocodile'. In the Jaws of the Crocodile tells the gripping story of how Mnangagwa fled Zimbabwe in fear for his life, and of his brief exile in South Africa, where he declared to Mugabe that he would return ‘in a matter of weeks’ to take control of the levers of power. It describes the military intervention against Mugabe and his allies, analyses the sudden power shift within Zanu-PF, and gives an eyewitness account of the mass demonstrations as people took to the streets to demand an end to Mugabe’s rule. It describes Mnangagwa’s return to Zimbabwe to take over the presidency, and concludes with an account of the disputed 2018 election. Drawing on interviews with Mnangagwa, his family, allies and opponents, and key political figures, this book gives unprecedented insights into the momentous events that changed the fate of a nation.

Denis Norman was born into an ordinary farming family in Oxfordshire, England in 1931, and 22 years later he travelled to Africa to become an assistant on a tobacco farm in Southern Rhodesia. Within a few years, he had bought his own farm, and had begun to rise through the ranks of the countrys agricultural administration. He was President of the Commercial Farmers Union when Robert Mugabe came to power in 1980 and, with no previous political affiliations, he was appointed Minister of Agriculture in the inaugural Zimbabwean government. His story throws a unique and fascinating light on the political and economic development of Zimbabwe. His assessment of its politicians; whether colleagues or adversaries; is candid and acute. In particular he offers an unusually nuanced and rarely glimpsed portrait of Mugabe, who, having asked him to leave government after the 1985 elections, later invited him back to be Minister of Transport, then Minister of Energy, and finally Minister of Agriculture again before Norman resigned in 1997. Written with a fine balance of the personal, the professional and the political, this memoir offers an observant insiders view of the early promise, and subsequent decline, of a newly independent country finding its way in the world. Denis Norman faced many difficult situations as a government minister, but his penchant for focusing on the positive earned him the nickname, Nothing Wrong Norman. His engaging story reflects his encouraging attitude and he remains hopeful for the future.

Instead of leading his people to the "promised land," Mugabe, the first prime minister of the newly-named Zimbabwe, has amassed a fortune for himself, his family and followers and has presided over the murder, torture and starvation of those who oppose him. This biography offers some explanations for Mugabe's behavior. With the death of his wife in 1992, a moderating influence was lost, and as the years go by, he continues to show himself intolerant of any opposition as he proceeds toward the creation of a one-party state, even though evidence suggests that his country is in terminal decline.

This book is an exploration of the political history of insurgency in SOuthern Rhodesia. During the early years of its struggle, ZAPU employed non-violent means to try and achieve its goal for majority rule and a non-racial society. Because of the belligerancy of the White settler regime, ZAPU added the armed resistance to its strategy and went on to build a formidable army. Problems escalated and alliances were built and dissolved until, tired of being hunted down and butchered, the ZAPU leadership decided to merge its party with the ruling party in December 1987.

Robert Mugabe came to power in Zimbabwe in 1980 after a long civil war in Rhodesia. The white minority government had become an international outcast in refusing to give in to the inevitability of black majority rule. Finally the defiant white prime minister Ian Smith was forced to step down and Mugabe was elected president. Initially he promised reconciliation between white and blacks, encouraged Zimbabwe's economic and social development, and was admired throughout the world as one of the leaders of the emerging nations and as a model for a transition from colonial leadership. But as Martin Meredith shows in this history of Mugabe's rule, Mugabe from the beginning was sacrificing his purported ideals—and Zimbabwe's potential—to the goal of extending and cementing his autocratic leadership. Over time, Mugabe has become ever more dictatorial, and seemingly less and less interested in the welfare of his people, treating Zimbabwe's wealth and resources as spoils of war for his inner circle. In recent years he has unleashed a reign of terror and corruption in his country. Like the Congo, Angola, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Liberia, Zimbabwe has been on a steady slide to disaster. Now for the first time the whole story is told in detail by an expert. It is a riveting and tragic political story, a morality tale, and an essential text for understanding today's Africa.

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.