Robert Mugabe came to power in Zimbabwe in 1980 after a long civil war in Rhodesia. The white minority government had become an international outcast in refusing to give in to the inevitability of black majority rule. Finally the defiant white prime minister Ian Smith was forced to step down and Mugabe was elected president. Initially he promised reconciliation between white and blacks, encouraged Zimbabwe's economic and social development, and was admired throughout the world as one of th...

A "gripping" (Booklist) and "richly detailed" (Kirkus Reviews) history of the fortune seekers, adventurers, despots, and thieves who have ruthlessly endeavored to extract gold, diamonds, and other treasures from Africa and its people.Africa has been coveted for its rich natural resources ever since the era of the Pharaohs. In past centuries, it was the lure of gold, ivory, and slaves that drew merchant-adventurers and conquerors from afar. In mode...

Nelson Mandela stands out as one of the most admired political figures of the twentieth century. It was his leadership and moral courage above all that helped to deliver a peaceful end to apartheid in South Africa after years of racial division and violence and to establish a fledgling democracy there.Martin Meredith's vivid portrayal of this towering leader was originally acclaimed as "an exemplary work of biography: instructive, illuminating, as well as felicitously written" (

The odyssey of the Reitz family passes like a thread through the tapestry of South African history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Originally Dutch-Afrikaner gentry from the Cape, the family moved to the frontier settlement of Bloemfontein and played a key role in the building of the Orange Free State. At the heart of this tale is the extraordinary career of Deneys Reitz, whose account of his adventures in the field during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), published as C...

Africa does not give up its secrets easily. Buried there lie answers about the origins of humankind. And yet, though vital clues still remain hidden, scientists have over the last century transformed our understanding about the beginnings of human life. In Born in Africa, Martin Meredith follows scientists' trail of discoveries about human origins, recounting their intense rivalry, personal feuds, and fierce controversies as well as their feats of skill and endurance. And he limns...

The definitive story of African nations after they emerged from colonialism -- from Mugabe's doomed kleptocracy to Mandela's inspiring defeat of apartheid.The Fate of Africa has been hailed by reviewers as "A masterpiece....The nonfiction book of the year" (The New York Post); "a magnificent achievement" (Weekly Standard); "a joy," (Wall Street Journal) and "one of the decade's most important works on Africa" (Publishers Week...

Martin Meredith documents the remarkable life of Bram Fischer in his biography Fischer's Choice. Fischer was born into an aristocratic Afrikaans family but became one of South Africa's leading revolutionaries. Regarded in his youth as having a brilliant career ahead of him, he rebelled not only against the apartheid system but also against his own Afrikaner people. As a defence lawyer, Fischer managed to save Mandela from the death penalty demanded by state prosecutors for his sabotage act...

For thousands of years, the majestic elephant has roamed the African continent, as beloved by man as it has been preyed upon. But centuries of exploitation and ivory hunting have taken their toll: now, as wars and poachers continue to ravage its habitat, as disease and political strife deflect attention from its plight, the African elephant faces imminent extinction.What will become of these magnificent beasts? As the elephant's future looms ever darker, Martin Meredith's concise a...

A "gripping" (Booklist) and "richly detailed" (Kirkus Reviews) history of the fortune seekers, adventurers, despots, and thieves who have ruthlessly endeavored to extract gold, diamonds, and other treasures from Africa and its people.Africa has been coveted for its rich natural resources ever since the era of the Pharaohs. In past centuries, it was the lure of gold, ivory, and slaves that drew merchant-adventurers and conquerors from afar. In mode...

Southern Africa was once regarded as a worthless jumble of British colonies, Boer republics, and African chiefdoms, a troublesome region of little interest to the outside world. But then prospectors chanced upon the world's richest deposits of diamonds and gold, setting off a titanic struggle between the British and the Boers for control of the land. The result was the costliest, bloodiest, and most humiliating war that Britain had waged in nearly a century, and the devastation of the Boer...

Why literary studies must confront digital mediationWe live and research in a technologically mediated landscape in which old models of reading and researching—methods that presume an autonomous, single scholar gathering resources and making claims—no longer hold. Scholars have yet to theorize either the embeddedness of their sources inside multiple layers of mediation or their own place in an information ecosystem that demands our active participation. In Poet...

Tibetan Subjectivities on the Global Stage: Negotiating Dispossession explores the many ways Tibetans are reimagining their cultural identity since the communist takeover of Tibet in the 1950s. Focusing on developments taking place in Tibet and the diaspora, this collection of essays addresses a wide range of issues at the heart of Tibetan modernity. From the political dynamics of the exiled community in India to the production of contemporary Tibetan literature in the PRC, the collection ...