newsCategory: Book Reviews
Zimbabwe’s best- loved musical instrument is introduced to billions during cultural diversity week
Kenny Mangwena from Zimbabwe playing the mbira at an African culture festival organised by Music for Change in Canterbury, southern England (Picture: Trevor Grundy) By Trevor Grundy As many… Read more >
‘It’s the Media, Stupid!’ Writers examine role of the Press in Labour’s catastrophic 2019 defeat
It’s the Media, Stupid! The Media, the 2019 Election and the Aftermath (Published by the Campaign for Free Press and Broadcasting Federation (North) 2020 £9.99 / 144 pp.) Review… Read more >
Yesterday in Paradise – A Goan journalist remembers days of sunshine and sorrow in Kenya
Review by TREVOR GRUNDY “History,” says a character in Louis de Bernieres’s novel Captain Corellis’s Mandolin,”ought to consist only of the anecdotes of the little people who are… Read more >
Blood River – A memory at the heart of the Afrikaners’ battle to surivive
Bridge Over Blood River: The Afrikaners’ Fight for Survival by Kajsa Norman (Hurst & Company, London 2016) TREVOR GRUNDY reviews Kajsa Norman’s book Bridge Over Blood River MODERN HISTORIANS… Read more >
Strongmen – Paving stones towards totalitarian dictatorships
STRONGMEN edited by Vijay Prashad published by OR Books 2018 • Paperback 112 pp. ISBN 978-1-682191-69-9 • E-book 978-1-682191-70-5) Reviewed by TREVOR GRUNDY Until recently, progressives believed that the retreat… Read more >
A SWAPO comrade’s experience of betrayal and torture
Book Review/Opinion SWAPO Captive – A comrade’s experience of betrayal and torture by Oiva Angula (Zebra Press, South Africa R 230/ 179pp.) Review by Trevor Grundy A regius… Read more >
Garfield Todd – The End of the Liberal Dream in Rhodesia, by Susan Woodhouse
The story of Garfield Todd in Central Africa starts in 1934. At the age of 26 he and his 23- year old wife, Grace and their adopted daughter, Alycen, came… Read more >
Kingdom, Power, Glory – Mugabe, Zanu and the Quest for Supremacy 1960-1987 by Stuart Doran
IN THE PREFACE to ‘Eminent Victorians,’ Lytton Strachey issued a warning that resonates with writers, historians, journalists and members of the public trying to make sense of post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. He… Read more >
The Odd Man In – Mugabe’s White Hand Man, by Denis Norman
One of the main surprises that followed Robert Mugabe’s overwhelming election victory (57 of the 80 seats open to Africans) in March 1980 was Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s decision to… Read more >
Writing Revolt – An engagement with African nationalism 1957-1967, by Terence Ranger
Professor Terence Ranger needs no introduction to students of Africa, or to those who helped turn white-ruled southern Rhodesia into black-governed Zimbabwe in April 1980. This Oxford University academic is… Read more >