Product Description

Robert Mugabe came to power in Zimbabwe in 1980 after a long civil war in Rhodesia. The white minority government had become an international outcast after refusing to give in to the inevitability of black majority rule, and finally the defiant white Prime Minister Ian Smith was forced to step down. Initially admired as the leader of one of Africa's emerging nations, Mugabe encouraged Zimbabwe's economic and social development, promising reconciliation between blacks and whites. But as Martin Meredith shows in this history of Africa's most notorious dictator, from the beginning, Mugabe was sacrificing his purported ideals - and Zimbabwe's potential - to the goal of extending and cementing his autocratic leadership. Over time, Mugabe has become ever more despotic, and seemingly less interested in the welfare of his people, treating Zimbabwe's wealth and resources as spoils of war for his inner circle. In recent years, he has unleashed a reign of terror and corruption in his country. Like the Congo, Angola, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Liberia, Zimbabwe has been on a steady slide to disaster. In "Mugabe", Martin Meredith tells the whole story in detail. As the 2008 elections approach the book, (first published in 2002), is now substantially revised to bring the story right up to date. A riveting and tragic political story, it is an essential text for understanding today's Africa.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28292 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Martin Meredith's new book on Robert Mugabe, Mugabe: Power and Plunder in Zimbabwe comes as a welcome antidote to the current one-dimensional portrayals of the president as an "evil monster" that narrow our understanding of the man. Meredith has spent most of his career reporting on Zimbabwe and South Africa, first as a foreign correspondent and latterly as an academic, so his credentials are impeccable. He does not shirk from condemning Mugabe for his single-minded obsession with power that has left Zimbabwe's roads flowing with blood and its economy bankrupt, but Meredith reminds us that in his earlier days Mugabe was a much more considered political radical. Mugabe spent his early years under the tutelage of the Jesuits, and only abandoned religion in favour of Marxism after he won a scholarship to study at university in South Africa where he quickly became a highly politicised member of the African National Congress. He came to Western attention in the late 1970s when the apartheid regime in Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was then known, creaked to its inevitable demise and Britain set about establishing an independent African regime in its former colony. Britain did its best to rig the results in favour of its preferred candidate the moderate and easily controlled Bishop Muzorewa, but much to the surprise of the Thatcher government--but to no-one in Zimbabwe--Mugabe's ZANU party romped home as landslide victors. Britain held its breath for the backlash and... nothing happened. In fact, Mugabe showed himself to be surprisingly conciliatory and Christopher Soames, the British governor-general who had been appointed to supervise the elections reported that he "ended up not only implicitly trusting him but also fondly loving him as well".

So where did it all go wrong? It is tempting to suggest that his father's desertion and the death of his young son were key factors in Mugabe's subsequent emotional detachment, but Meredith resists drawing such a linear psychological equation. Instead he catalogues the landmark events, such as the scandal of the war veteran pensions, that led Mugabe to compromise both his morality and his country and one is left with the impression that Zimbabwe's fate was inevitable given that Mugabe's only guiding motivation was to hang on to power whatever the cost. Mugabe: Power and Plunder in Zimbabwe is the first book of a brand new non-fiction imprint, PublicAffairs Ltd, that is dedicated to following the standards of IF Stone and Benjamin Bradlee: both would be more than happy to be associated with Meredith's volume. --John Crace

Review
"...the best argued and best written indictment yet of the man Nelson Mandela mockingly calls Comrade Bob." The Economist "This book is highly readable, clear and fast-moving. It is excellent on Mugabe's early life and the way he became drawn into the struggle of Zimbabwe." Financial Times "As a well-written chronicle of Zimbabwe's degradation, this book is of great value." Sunday Telegraph "Martin Meredith's account of the pursuit of power and plunder is especially good on the early years of Mugabe..." Daily Telegraph "Martin Meredith's book is not so much a biography as a brief gallop through the unfolding moral fable of independent Zimbabwe to the present day. As such it is a useful short guide..." Sunday Times"

About the Author
Martin Meredith has spent much of his life writing about Africa: first as a foreign correspondent for The Observer and The Sunday Times, then as a research fellow at St. Antony's College, Oxford, and now as an independent author and commentator. He is the author of In the Name of Apartheid: South Africa's New Era, The Past is Another Country, The First Dance of Freedom, Nelson Mandela, and Coming to Terms: South Africa's Search for Truth. He lives in Oxford.

Customer Reviews

Interesting but incomplete
I have no connection to Zimbabwe, just a tourist who visited in the early 90s so had no particular bias pre-knowledge. I was looking forward to reading an informed book about the 'man' himself and gain an understanding of how he became what he is today. The book was interesting, contained selective information but did not give me any real understanding of Mugabe. The book was short-cut could have been much longer and really did not give a 'novice' on Mugabe any real insight into the man or Zimbabwe. Disappointed in the content, but even so the book was interesting and well written.

A Brilliant Book To Understand The Man and The Party
Matin Meridith gives a good grounding to those wishing to know more about the complexities of the man behind the present situation in Zimbabwe. He breaks it up in to chapters taking us through the life of the President from his life as a School Teacher to the Present Day Autocrat that he has become.

As can be expected the Majority of the Book is devoted to the last 22 years as Mugabe has developed a system of personal rule, carefully using the party and clung on to power in the last couple of years.

I thoroughly recommend this book as it was a great read and a concise report of the man at the centre of this African country.

A timely interesting and apparently fair account
This well written, well presented and timely book has reached the market almost simultaneously in the U.K. and the U.S.A. (under different titles) shortly before the key Presidential elections in Zimbabwe. The author appears to have done careful research and reported very contentious topics reasonably fairly. The account is solid but gripping. Reading the book is easier because it is so well presented. Recommended if you have any interest in Zimbabwe.