From the Barrel of the Gun

The United States and the War Against Zimbabwe, 1965–1980

Gerald Horne

The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill, NC
2001
English
Paperback
400 pages

Synopsis

In November 1965, Ian Smith's white minority government in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) made a unilateral declaration of independence, breaking with Great Britain. With a European population of a few hundred thousand dominating an African majority of several million, Rhodesia's racial structure echoed the apartheid of neighboring South Africa. Smith's declaration sparked an escalating guerrilla war that claimed thousands of lives. Across the Atlantic, President Lyndon B. Johnson nervously watched events in Rhodesia, fearing that racial conflict abroad could inflame racial discord at home.

Review

In the tradition of Walter Rodney, Gerald Horne brilliantly writes black history in a comparative and Pan-African context. From the Barrel of a Gun provides the best historical study to date on the African struggle to overthrow the white minority rule in Zimbabwe. - Manning Marable, Columbia University.

Author

Gerald Horne is an African-American historian who currently holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston.