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.
