This is the story of Southern Rhodesia, from a time of its earliest known inhabitants, the Bushmen, to their displacement by the Bantu; the invasion by the Matabele under King Mzilikaze; the advent of the white missionaries; and the arrival of Cecil Rhodes and his Pioneer Column of early settlers, up to the time of independence in 1980. This is the romantic land of the high veld; of teeming game; of the great river Zambezi and the mighty Victoria Falls, and of enormous mineral wealth. This was the country that Robert Mugabe-its future leader-referred to as `the jewel of Africa'.
And yet in this land of plenty, tensions in the mid-twentieth century were mounting between its black inhabitants and the whites, including those of British and Afrikaner stock: tensions which would one day boil over into a civil war in which Southern Rhodesia's neighbours would also become involved.
The author has first-hand knowledge of the country, having arrived there with his parents in 1956. He describes what it was like to arrive in a British colony, in the last decades of the colonial era; the wonders of Wankie Game Reserve (now Hwange National Park); a schoolboy expedition to the Eastern Districts in search of the elusive `stone door ruin'; and a personal friendship which developed between himself and his family's black servant Timot, at a time of racial segregation.
By:
Andrew Norman
Imprint: FONTHILL
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 18mm
Weight: 420g
ISBN: 9781781556887
ISBN 10: 1781556881
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 04 April 2018
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Preface; Foreword; 1 Childhood ; 2 The Adventure Begins; 3 Another Continent: Virtually Another World; 4 First Impressions; 5 School; 6 Gwelo, and Further Afield: A Tobacco Farm; 7 Leisure; 8 Flora and Fauna, including Snakes!; 9 Wankie Game Reserve; 10 Timot; 11 A Schoolboy Expedition; 12 Further Topics of Interest: `Judy'; 13 The Matopos: Great Zimbabwe; 14 Advent of the Missionaries; 15 A Latter-Day Missionary; 16 The Victoria Falls: Dr David Livingstone; 17 Cecil John Rhodes: Gold!; 18 The Matabele War and Rebellion; 19 Mrs Jeannie Boggie: A Living Link with the Past; 20 The Afrikaners; 21 The Death of Rhodes: Inyanga; 22 Federation; 23 The Blacks: Health, Education, Apartheid; 24 The Land Issue: The Rise of African Nationalism; 25 Robert Mugabe: Influence of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana: Nyasaland, Catalyst for Change; 26 Farewell: Aftermath: Independence; 27 Robert Mugabe: Blood and Tears.
Andrew Norman was born in Newbury, Berkshire, England in 1943. Having been educated at Thornhill High School, Gwelo, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Midsomer Norton Grammar School, and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, he qualified in medicine at the Radcliffe Infirmary. He has two children Bridget and Thomas, by his first wife. From 1972-83, Andrew worked as a general practitioner in Poole, Dorset, before a spinal injury cut short his medical career. He is now an established writer whose published works include biographies of Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, Thomas Hardy, T. E. Lawrence, Adolf Hitler, Agatha Christie, Enid Blyton, Beatrix Potter, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Robert Mugabe. Andrew married his second wife Rachel, in 2005.
