Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo of Zimbabwe: Politics, Power, and Memory (African Histories and Modernities)

This book is a pioneering study of Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo, a Zimbabwean nationalist whose crucial role in the country s anti-colonial struggle has largely gone unrecognized. These essays trace his early influence on Zimbabwean nationalism in the late 1950s and his leadership in the armed liberation movement and postcolonial national-building processes, as well as his denigration by the winners of the 1980 elections, Mugabe s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. The Nkomo that emerges is complex and contested, the embodiment of Zimbabwe s tortured trajectory from colony to independent postcolonial state. This is an essential corrective to the standard history of twentieth-century Zimbabwe, and an invaluable resource for scholars of African nationalist liberation movements and nation-building.