Catastrophe: What Went Wrong in Zimbabwe?

by Richard Bourne

No one in 1980 could have guessed that Zimbabwe would become a failed state on such a monumental and tragic scale.

In this incisive and revealing book, Richard Bourne shows how a country which had every prospect of success when it achieved a delayed independence in 1980 became a brutal police state with hyperinflation, collapsing life expectancy and abandonment by a third of its citizens less than thirty years later.

Beginning with the British conquest of Zimbabwe and covering events up to the present precarious political situation, this is the most comprehensive, up-to-date and readable account of the ongoing crisis. Bourne shows that Zimbabwe's tragedy is not just about Mugabe's 'evil' but about history, Africa today and the world's attitudes towards them.

Genres: Africa, History, Politics, Zimbabwe, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 11, 2011

Reviews

[David Corleto-Bales]

The history of how Zimbabwe went from a hopeful independence to being one of the poorest countries in southern Africa, did in by its bad leaders. There is a cursory history of British settlement in the establishment of Rhodesia, first as a private venture and then a colony, and the white minority government that finally gave way in 1980. More of a textbook than a readable history.

[Brian Chando]

Fair, descriptive and informative.
If you like southern african history in general this is your book. I liked how the author routed back to very very old times before the colonisation of this region even started