Since the monumental architecture of the Zimbabwe Plateau first became known to Westerners in the 16th century, speculation about the people that created it has been continuous and inventive. Tales of strongholds in the interior were taken home by the first Portuguese chroniclers of the Swahili coast, and their narratives became part of the geographic lore of the 17th and 18th centuries. In the mid-19th century, the lore was spun into fantastic and mysterious yarns about long-lost riches that lured adventurers and traders. Pikirayi (history, U. of Zimbabwe) aims to set the record straight by examining the growth of precolonial states on the plateau and adjacent regions, with a focus on the their historical and cultural development during the second millennium AD. c. Book News Inc.

Zimbabwe, formerly known as Rhodesia, won its independence from Great Britain in 1980 yet continues to feel the impact of Western lifestyles and prejudices. This rich, accessible overview freshly examines Zimbabwe, evoking the contemporary ways of life in a largely homogenous and agricultural country. Students and general readers will discover an engaging narrative that ranges from an explanation of the beer culture to a powerful discussion of marriage, family, and gender roles from the Zimbabwean perspective. Owomoyela also authoritatively conveys the coexistence of traditional and Western forces today in such areas as religion and music. A chronology and glossary accompany the text.

Zimbabwe's Cultural Heritage won first prize in the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association Awards in 2006 for Non-fiction: Humanities and Social Sciences. It is a collection of pieces of the culture of the Ndebele, Shona, Tonga, Kalanga, Nambiya, Xhosa and Venda. The book gives the reader an insight into the world view of different peoples, through descriptions of their history and life events such as pregnancy, marriage and death. "...the most enduring book ever on Zimbabwean history. This book will help people change their attitude towards each other in Zimbabwe." - Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association Awards citation

African Cultures, Memory and Space is an impeccable volume that powerfully grapples with a gamut of cultural heritage issues, challenges and problems from a vista of inter- and multi-disciplinary approach. The book, which is designed as a foundational text to the study of culture in ever-changing environments, makes an important argument that the dynamism of culture in highly globalised societies such as that of Zimbabwe can be studied from any perspective, but most importantly through careful examination of cultural elements such as memory, oral history and space, among others. While the book makes special reference to Zimbabwe, it profoundly and audaciously dissect and cut across different geographical and cultural spaces through its penetrating interrogation and scrutiny of different issues commonplace in many African contexts and even beyond. The book, written by scholars from different backgrounds and orientations, should appeal to scholars, researchers and students from various disciplines which include but not limited to Cultural Heritage Studies, Policy Studies, Social-Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, Development Studies and African Studies.

This timely book reflects on discourses of identity that pervade local talk and texts in Zimbabwe, a nation beset by political and economic crisis. As she explores questions of culture that play out in broadly accessible local and foreign film and television, Katrina Daly Thompson shows how viewers interpret these media and how they impact everyday life, language use, and thinking about community. She offers a unique understanding of how media reflect and contribute to Zimbabwean culture, language, and ethnicity.

In this new history of music in Zimbabwe, Mhoze Chikowero deftly uses African sources to interrogate the copious colonial archive, reading it as a confessional voice along and against the grain to write a complex history of music, colonialism, and African self-liberation. Chikowero's book begins in the 1890s with missionary crusades against African performative cultures and African students being inducted into mission bands, which contextualize the music of segregated urban and mining company dance halls in the 1930s, and he builds genealogies of the Chimurenga music later popularized by guerrilla artists like Dorothy Masuku, Zexie Manatsa, Thomas Mapfumo, and others in the 1970s. Chikowero shows how Africans deployed their music and indigenous knowledge systems to fight for their freedom from British colonial domination and to assert their cultural sovereignty.

Offering a unique and original perspective on the rise and fall of indigenous states of southern Zambezia, The Zimbabwe Culture analyzes the long contentious history of the remains of the remarkable cyclopean masonry, ranging from mighty capitals of traditional kings to humble farmsteads. Forming a cornerstone of the geographical lore of Africa in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, debate on the origins, development, and collapse of the Zimbabwe culture has never ceased, and with increasing archaeological research over the twentieth century, has become more complex. Thoroughly examining the growth and decline of pre-colonial states on the entire Zimbabwean Plateau and southern Zambezia, Dr. Pikirayi has contributed tremendously towards the archaeological understanding of this extraordinary culture. The Zimbabwe Culture is essential reading for all students and avocationalists of African archaeology, history, and culture.

This book investigates how culture reflects change in Zimbabwe, focusing predominantly on Mnangagwa’s 2017 coup, but also uncovering deeper roots for how renewal and transition are conceived in the country. Since Emmerson Mnangagwa ousted Robert Mugabe in 2017, he has been keen to defi ne his "Second Republic" or "New Dispensation" with a rhetoric of change and a rejection of past political and economic cultures. This multi and inter- disciplinary volume looks to the (social) media, language/ discourse, theatre, images, political speeches and literary fiction and non- fiction to see how they have reflected on this time of unprecedented upheaval. The book argues that themes of self- renewal stretch right back to the formative years of the ZANU PF, and that despite the longevity of Mugabe’s tenure, the latest transition can be seen as part of a complex and protracted layering of postcolonial social, economic and political changes. Providing an innovative investigation of how political change in Zimbabwe is reflected on in cultural texts and products, this book will be of interest to researchers across African history, literature, politics, culture and post- colonial studies.

One of the central theoretical and practical issues in post-colonial Africa is the relevance, nature, and politics at play in the management of museum institutions on the continent. Most African museums were established during the 19th and 20th centuries as European imperialists were spreading their colonial tentacles across the continent. The attainment of political independence has done little to undo or correct the obnoxious situation. Most African countries continue to practice colonial museology despite surging scholarship and calls by some Afro-centric and critical scholars the world over to address the quandaries on the continents museum institutions. There is thus an unresolved struggle between the past and the present in the management of museums in Africa. In countries such as Zimbabwe, the struggle in museum management has been precipitated by the sharp economic downturn that has gripped the country since the turn of the millennium. In view of all these glitches, this book tackles the issue of the management of heritage in Zimbabwe. The book draws on the findings by scholars and researchers from different academic orientations and backgrounds to advance the thesis that museums and museology in Zimbabwe face problems of epic proportions that require urgent attention. It makes insightful suggestions on possible solutions to the tapestry of the inexorably enigmatic amalgam of complex problems haunting museum institutions in Zimbabwe, calling for a radical transformation of museology as a discipline in the process. This book should appeal to policy makers, scholars, researchers and students from disciplines such as museology, archaeology, social-cultural anthropology, and culture and heritage studies.

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