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African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe 1923-80. By Timothy Stapleton. Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora. Rochester, NY: Rochester University Press, 2011. Pp. x, 313; map, photographs, bibliography, index, glossary. $90.00/ £50.
Timothy Stapleton' s book on African police and soldiers in Zimbabwe's history fills a major gap in Zimbabwe's historiography. As Stapleton writes in his introduction, historians have neglected African soldiers and police in large measure because they did not fit neatly into presumed categories of importance for Zimbabwe's past, namely the growth and triumph of nationalism. However, as Stapleton points out, whites depended upon African police and soldiers to prop up white privilege. At the same time, African police and soldiers experienced racial prejudice and fought against it. They are, in short, a perfect study in how whites and Africans navigated colonial tensions. Moreover, African police especially are an important group to study and understand since they did not follow, often, the nationalist historical arc; indeed, many seemed to be on the other side of the nationalists even as they fought against white racial privilege and embraced the language of African pride. Set against the backdrop of recent rethinking of Zimbabwean history, Stapleton' s book could not come at a better...