The crisis that has engulfed Zimbabwe since 2000 is not simply a struggle against dictatorship.
It is also a struggle over ideas and deep-seated historical issues still unresolved from the
independence process that both Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF regime and Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC are
vying first to define and then to address. This book traces the role of politicians and public
intellectuals in media civil society and the academy in producing and disseminating a
politically usable historical narrative concerning ideas about patriotism race land human
rights and sovereignty. It raises pressing questions about the role of contemporary African
intellectuals in the making of democratic societies. In so doing the book adds a new and rich
dimension to the study of African politics which is often diluted by the neglect of ideas.
