“The book is an enthralling account where one can watch Terence Ranger facing the self-imposed tests of moral courage when liberal principles confronted the increasingly bitter uncertainties of nationalist struggle in Rhodesia,” said Professor John Lonsdale at the book’s UK launch at Oxford University on March 6.
Ranger’s new book is a 182 page account of aspects of his life in Africa, starting with his arrival in southern Rhodesia in 1957 and ending with his departure for Britain after serving first at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and then at Dar es Salaam University in early 1968. It paints a picture of the time and how he came to write what many regard as his masterpiece – the 1967 publication Revolt in Southern Rhodesia 1896-7.
During those turbulent years, Terence Ranger and his wife Shelagh were key figures in the nationalist struggle against all-white rule, first under Garfield Todd, then Sir Edgar Whitehead, Winston Field and Ian Douglas Smith.
Ranger was a close friend of many of the key nationalists of that time including Joshua Nkomo, Garfield Todd, Judith and Grace Todd, Ndananingi Sithole, James Chikerema, George Nyandoro, Maurice Nyagumbo, Stanlake Samkange and his younger brother Sketchley, the little known but massively important Peter Mackay, Guy Clutton-Brock and several dozen others. Thursday night’s ceremony in Harare will be attended by those active at that time including journalist and author Judith Todd, Tommie Samkange, the widow, Stanlake Samkange, Cornelius Sanyanga, today a prominent Zimbabwean banker, and the well respected historian, Dr Gerald Mazarire.
In the book’s Preface, Professor Ranger pays homage to his recently-departed friend and colleague, John Reed, whose diaries so assisted Ranger write this recollection of 10 years that it shook Africa.
“I have been very anxious,” he says,” that this book should not take the form of the classical Africanist autobiography – the golden years of discovery of Africa under the benevolence of late colonialism followed by a steady disillusionment, as theory wars raged among Africanists, as Africa itself collapsed into chaos, as the grind of teaching and examining replaced inspiration.”
Professor Ranger is one of the world’s best known and most widely respected historians. He is Emeritus Rhodes Professor of Race Relations, University of Oxford.
Post published in: Arts