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Daniel Compagnon. A Predictable Tragedy: Robert Mugabe and the Collapse of Zimbabwe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. 334 pp. List of Acronyms. Notes. Index. Acknowledgments. $39.95. Cloth.
Daniel Compagnon is no stranger to Zimbabwean studies, having previously co-authored Behind the Smokescreen with John Makumbe before the country fell into unprecedented crisis in 2000. His deep knowledge of the political developments and dynamics is fully reflected in this current book, which seeks to explain the route taken by Zimbabwe into crisis. Unlike authors unfamiliar with the evolution of nationalist politics along neopatrimonial and authoritarian lines which portended a future crisis, and who were thus easily blinded by the rhetoric of progress and cosmetic signs of Zimbabwe as a successful transitional state, Compagnon insists that the crisis was predictable to those who cared to look beyond myths of political stability and pretenses of economic rationality.
In eight solidly researched and ably argued chapters, Compagnon manages convincingly to pursue his important thesis of a predictable tragedy. Introducing his book, Compagnon unpacks a catalogue of myths forged by the Mugabe regime and outsiders to cover the nakedness of absolutism, authoritarianism, and economic irrationality. One such myth: Mugabe created a democratic multiracial nation-state. Once one goes beyond the myths, the important question to ask, according to Compagnon, is not what went wrong in Zimbabwe, but why it took so long to plunge...