Rhodesia: A Complete History 1890-1980 Kindle Edition

It's hard to judge the content of a book when the writing is so bad. I've seen worse, but honestly this isn't far off.One of the principles of writing, for either fiction or nonfiction, is that when you edit a piece, you remove any superfluous words -- use exactly as many words as you need to say what you want, no more. Remember "I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one instead"? Peter Baxter seems not to have heard of that. He writes like a high schooler trying to sound narratively impressive by using all kinds of fanciful phrases to make his work sound important. It doesn't work. This book is full of run-on sentences, fanciful metaphors, and constant interjections: "quite", "indeed", "rather", "however", and his personal favorite "of course." All. The. Time. If all the nonsensical phrases were removed, this book would be 50-100 pages shorter.What makes it worse is that nonfiction suffers from fanciful language. Being clear and literal helps people understand history. Being fanciful means slapping an over simplified metaphor to describe people's complex feelings. It makes it hard to tell if the author is basing his statement on actual research or his own opinion. It also means that all the juicy depths of history are smothered in a layer of narrative ketchup, and the reader is left with only a vague awareness of what happened.Take for example:"It began to seem this time that old Doctor Jim really had bitten off more than he could chew, but there were deeper reserves yet in this extraordinary man. He cajoled, dragged and willed his companions on, and on they struggled It was indeed the stuff of Victorian comic book and legend, and vintage Jameson to the very core."This tells us nothing. Why is Jameson extraordinary? What did he say? Did Victorians really have comic books? What is "vintage" and why does that matter? If a student is reading this book for a report, what does this sentence tell them that they can use?One thing Baxter does that is one of the most obvious errors in writing is assuming people's feelings. Saying things like "he probably thought", "one can imagine," and "one can assume." No, one cannot. This is history. If a writer has an impression of a person's feelings based on research, then he needs to support his impression with quotes and state very clearly that this is his impression based on specific sources.Oh, yeah, there's a very poorly edited bibliography, but no in-text citations.Even when getting past the terrible writing, it's clear that Baxter has his own opinion that he's pushing. Baxter is a little more subtle at hiding his opinions than the worst writers, but they're very obviously there. Some examples:"These contradictions helped Huggins expose the Liberal Party as a dilettante alliance of loudmouthed amateurs thumping the table."All of them? Every single one? A large group with no individuation whatsoever? Also, the reader would be able to judge the opinions of the Liberal Party if Baxter actually explained what they were in any detail. It would also help if anyone in the Liberal Party was shown taking specific individual actions by which the reader could discern things.To be fair, Baxter did at least explain that the Liberal Party was unrelated to American politics, but the only member he really talked about so far (I'm halfway through the book) is Minister Jacob Smit. Baxter describes him very poorly. He makes some passive aggressive comments on Smit, saying things like Smit was just a wartime appointment, and all Rhodesia's best men were off fighting WWII and that he was on a lower intellectual development. Does Baxter show Smit doing anything specific? Ever quote him? Ever show what Smit is about? No. Apparently Baxter simply doesn't like the guy, and that's the only impression the reader can get from the narrative.History is not about making points. It's about presenting facts and letting readers come to conclusions based on what we are able to see based on research. This book fails that standard.Edit: lowered to one star because I simply couldn't finish it.

Rhodesia is one of my primary areas of interest in Frontier Partisans history. Tales of hunting, prospecting and pioneering in this rich and beautiful land rival anything from the Ohio River Valley frontier, the days of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade or from the harsh borderlands of Apacheria.You can well imagine my delight when I discovered that the estimable Peter Baxter has released his history of Rhodesia as an e-book on Kindle. Baxter is an excellent military historian of African conflicts from the colonial to the modern era, as well as leading treks in the veld. His history podcast is quite excellent and worth your time.On his Facebook page, Baxter described his Rhodesia history thus:“It is not by any means a sentimental hagiography, and no one comes out unscathed, but an objective look at a fascinating historic saga of the British imperial period in Africa.”Baxter’s assessments of events and personalities always strike me as judicious and driven by a genuine interest in capturing a truthful picture of people and events, rather than an effort to put an edge on an ideological battle ax. He considers himself a storyteller, and he is clearly fully conscious of the richness of this frontier tale. From the ancient builders of Zimbabwe to the last stand in the face of international isolation and a Communist onslaught, it’s as ripping a true yarn as you can find in the history of the Frontier Partisans — and a hell of an opportunity for a few bucks.While many of Baxter’s books are readily available stateside, his Rhodesia history has not been — and it’s been too expensive for my budget.“It is still available in hard-copy in South Africa and Zimbabwe,” Baxter notes, “but if it generates any interest I will put it out in paperback.”That is an outcome devoutly to be desired. I encourage all of you who are interested in deeply researched frontier history written by a man who can handle himself in the field and who has a flair for storytelling to buy it and review it. This is work that deserves the widest possible audience.

I am now 50% of the way through reading this book, and I am really enjoying it. Being a Rhodesian myself, it's great learning the history behind all the names and places that I am familiar with. I was expecting a dry recital of the historical facts, but instead, it reads like a Wilbur Smith novel. There is however one point that I found disappointing. Peter Baxter naturally goes into a lot of detail on Rhodes, the British South Africa Company, the Pioneer Column, and how they snatched Rhodesia from the natives. But, at the same time as Rhodes was doing this, he was also busy snatching the territories of present day Zambia and Malawi. There is no mention of this at all in the book, I had to go to Wikipedia to find out the details. I thought this would have been relevant, especially as the formation of the Federation is described in detail later in the book.I have now finished reading this book. As I mentioned above, I was born in Rhodesia in 1950, and lived there until the end of 1981, so I personally lived through, and witnessed many of the events described in the book. I found Peter's account to be thorough, accurate, and very interesting. In particular, his assessment of the personal characters of the people involved was fascinating. I now have a much better understanding of what, and why, things happened as they did in Rhodesia. There is an amazing amount of detail in this book, and it is well worth reading.

I decided to find out about Cecil Rhodes and Rhodesia because of the recent clamour to pull down his statue at the Oxford college which Rhodes founded. I have vague recollections of the Rhodesian UDI issue from my teenage years.This book is a lengthy, very detailed and slightly monotonous chronology of the political and commercial players and events in the history of Rhodesia. It seems to be compiled on the basis that the reader will already have a fairly comprehensive understanding of the subject matter but needs or wants to get some more of the political detail.The book tells almost nothing of the 'human' story and focuses entirely upon government level activity across southern/central Africa and London. There are numerous typo errors on the Kindle edition. I returned the book at about the halfway point.

Not because of the subject matter, but because of the writing style. This isn't an academic book in the slightest. It lacks any referencing of information, and relies solely on the author's own personal knowledge of Rhodesia. I realise this might not be of great importance to a lot of people, but for me if I'm reading something of an historical nature, I prefer there to be a level of transparency of the author's sources of information, and to be open to intelligent scrutiny.

Peter Baxter ha composto un libro di qualità eccellente: ricchissimo di informazioni e fonti variegate, quasi impossibili da trovare per chiunque non si trovi in Africa. La narrazione scorre perfettamente, non ci sono parti poco chiare, e gli argomenti trattati sono veramente tanti. Credo si tratti del miglior libro sulla storia della Rhodesia mai scritto finora.Consigliato a tutti gli appassionati dell'argomento, soprattutto per via delle numerose fonti storiche ormai introvabili a cui fa riferimento.

The book is a very interesting history of Rhodesia and the Rhodesian bush war .The book details in every political and economical aspect the development of rhodesia, since 1890 to 1980 .The book chronicles very well the conquest of the country organised by Rhodes in 1890.The book chronicles also the development of the colonial society, where the English white settlers governed, owned all the land and exploited the black people as cheap workers.The book details also the decolonisation in Zambia and Malawi ( in the 1950/1960s these states were united in a short-lived federation with rhodesia ).In the end, the book chronicles very well the rhodesian bush war , with the final battle between white settlers and black masses for the control of Zimbabwe / rhodesia.The main battles and fights of the war arent well described .The battles of Rhodesian bush war are described better in other books , as " total onslaught" written by former journalist moorecraft or the book " A Handful of Hard Men: The SAS and the Battle for Rhodesia". however in the book the political aspect of the war is described very well .The book describes the personality and character of important people , as the white Suprematist leader of rhodesia Ian smith and the black leader Mugabe.the book talks very well also about the actions of some elite Rhodesian army units, as the selous scouts.Only problems of the book :-it is very long ( 700 pages), maybe a little of editing could have been made .- The history is described through the actions and thoughts of political and military leaders who ruled rhodesia .You won't know very much about the feeling or actions of common white settlers or black people, living in Rhodesia and during the rhodesiana bush war .

The account of the early years is particularly interesting and instructive. Some of the accounts of later events were at times a bit drawn out. Because the history of Rhodesia is so very fraught, it is no doubt difficult to fully describe the feelings of people on both sides, and especially those caught in the middle. I, having lived there myself, am in no doubt whatsoever that a gradual evolution to majority rule could have and would have been achieved if good men had held to their values. This reminds one of the Burke’s saying “all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing”