Description
Book SynopsisFirst published in 1977, A History of Rhodesia is a history of the origins and course of modern European occupation of âSouthern Rhodesiaâ, âRhodesiaâ as it has been termed since the old âNorthern Rhodesiaâ became independent under the name Zambia in 1963. Robert Blake describes the years of the Monomotapa; the Portuguese occupation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the Ndebele kingdom of the nineteenth century; the advent of Cecil Rhodes and the establishment of the Chartered Company which ruled Rhodesia until 1922; the period Southern Rhodesia enjoyed a self-governing colony from 1923 to 1951; the years of the Central African Federation from 1953 to its dissolution in 1963; and finally the dramatic course of events which led to Ian Smithâs government making a unilateral declaration of independence in 1965. The years since UDI are covered by a long epilogue that takes the story forward to the early months of 1977.
Rhodesian history is a strange and intriguing compound of romance, idealism, courage, arrogance, avarice and accident. Rhodesiaâs story is not only that of economic, political, ideological and external forces which have shaped itâit is also that of the individuals who madeâor failed to make decisions: Rhodes, Lobengula, Jameson, Lord Malvern, Roy Welensky, Garfield Todd, Joshua Nkomo, Ian Smith.
Written with access to many collections of papers not normally available to historians, Robert Blakeâs book is a major contribution to the history of colonial and post-colonial Africa.
