Synopsis
The Matopos Hills of Zimbabwe have been occupied by humanity for some 40,000 years. They are the home for a number of shrines, and have become a scene of symbolic, ideological, political and armed conflict between the Shona, Ndebele and Europeans for more than 100 years. Many questions in Matopos history are crucial to the history of Matabeleland as a whole, and some central to the history of Zimbabwe: the right relationship of men and women to the land; the nature of culture; the dynamics of ethnicity;the roots of disidence and violence; and the historical bases of underdevelopment. This work examines these issues.
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Review
Voices from the Rocks is a remarkable work of scholarship. For Ranger, former Rhodes Professor, and since May last year, an Ndebele induna, this book is a triumphant step in a career dedicated to understanding this part of Africa. - Peter Fry in THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT Ranger's book is clearly an impressive historical contribution to the understanding of modern Zimbabwe. It is also a model for those who seek to explain how settler logic conflicted with African culture. It belongs to a handful of local histories which truly illuminate the complex process by which Africans confronted and resisted European colonization and adapted to post-colonial realities. - Patrick Chabal in INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS ...a rare gem of a book... - Heidi Glaesel in AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW The notable lack of detailed accounts of the modern history of those other Zimbabweans, the Ndebele, with whom this book is concerned, owed much to the prolonged struggle between Zimbabwe's ruling party and their Ndebele opponents which closed the region, if not the National Archives, to researchers. With the emergency restrictions lifted, Ranger began the intensive interviewing in Matopo District; the richness and intensity of this evidence and the excellence of its analysis makes this book both strikingly original and intellectually intriguing. For Zimbabweans both black and white, these distinctive hills have a special place in their shared but tragic history... This is a wonderfully imaginative and intelligent book by a great scholar at the height of his powers. - Richard Rathbone in THE ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW This important and original book deals with many themes pertinent to postcolonial research. Terence Ranger, a leading historian of nationalism and religion, skilfully employs regional history to chronicle and analyse on the one hand the practice of colonialism and its appropriation of land and manipulation of culture, science, and landscape and, on the other; popular resistance to colonial rule.- Peter Limb inINTERVENTIONS
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