The Army and Politics in Zimbabwe Mujuru, the Liberation Fighter and Kingmaker

An illustrious African liberation fighter in the 1970s and, until his suspicious death in 2011, an important figure in Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF party in Zimbabwe, this first full-length biography of General Solomon Mujuru or Rex Nhongo throws much needed light onto the opaque elite politics of the 1970s liberation struggle, post-independence army and ZANU PF. Based on the unparalleled primary interviews with informants in the army, intelligence services, police and ZANU PF elites, Blessing-Miles Tendi examines Mujuru's moments of triumph and his shortcomings in equal measure. From his undistinguished youth and poor upbringing in colonial Rhodesia's Chikomba region, his rapid rise to power, and role as the first black commander of independent Zimbabwe's national army, this is an essential record of one of the most controversial figures within the history of African liberation politics.

1. Preamble; 2. Fireborn I; 3. Ghost of Chitepo; 4. Kingmaker; 5. The longest time; 6. 'We are free … we are here'; 7. 'A big small man'; 8. Gods of violence; 9. Fortune, love and politics; 10. Fireborn II.

Blessing-Miles Tendi is Associate Professor of African Politics at the University of Oxford where his research has focused on civil-military relations, intelligence, gender and politics, and the existence and uses of 'evil' in politics. He is the author of Making History in Mugabe's Zimbabwe: Politics, Intellectuals and the Media (2010).