I really enjoyed “The Collapse of Rhodesia: Population Demographics and the Politics of Race” by Josiah Brownell. It’s more academic than these books, but focuses on an under studied aspect of the colonial regime.
Love your writing and I am learning how bad my normie public school education was. How about the book i purchased on audible, “A handful of hard men”. I am thoroughly enjoying it.
So far as the combat memoirs go, it is undoubtedly my favorite after Three Sips of Gin. However, I think Bax is a somewhat better writer and tells somewhat more interesting stories, so his edged out that one on this list
However, that one is still great, and one I really enjoyed reading
I have to say Mukiwa (and to a lesser degree the other two books in the series) are really a wonderful inside view of growing up during the main period of conflict. It contrasts well with the other works listed and the many soldierly accounts of the Rhodesian Bush War and the eras before and after.
Sure, it is written from a somewhat conventional center-liberal perspective, but because of this we get a very honest view that translates well to people who have grown up in the center-liberal world that dominates the Western political sphere.
To Peter Godwin’s credit, he doesn’t really pull punches or shield himself too much, and by simply describing the reality around him, race realism and survival really ooze out of his works despite his futile hope for a successful, peaceful, multiracial Zimbabwe.
I should note that the audiobook versions are particularly good because the author himself does the narration, and with his Rhodesian accent and emotion, it does make quite good listening. He also spent some time in the Rhodesian Security Forces during the war, so he’s not just writing from a journalistic or civilian perspective. I love Hannes Wessel, Ian Smith, et. al. but I find Mukiwa to be really broadly enlightening.
Alexander Fuller. Her autobiography. Don't Let's Go to the Dog's Tonight."Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969. In 1972 she moved with her family to a farm in Rhodesia. After that country’s civil war in 1981, the Fullers moved first to Malawi, then to Zambia." Fuller illustrates a searing narrative. Also, Scribbling The Cat, my story with an African Solder. Another rich visceral painting of war in Rhodesia.
Thanks! I love his account on Twitter, but always forget he has a YouTube channel.
If you’re going to start with one or two, Three Sips of Gin is fabulous, and A Pride of Eagles is a very readable general history, despite the nominal air force focus
Around 10 years ago I discovered the history of Rhodesia and South Africa and was stunned how this rather recent history had been sort of hidden like a dirty secret. So I read a bunch of books and memoirs to learn why:
Weep For Africa by Jeremy Hall
Beyond No Mean Soldier by Peter Mcaleese
Bush War Operator by AJ Balaam
A Walk Against the Stream by Tony Ballinger
Fireforce by Chris Cocks
The Bleed by John Cronin (American who fought in Vietnam and went to Rhodesia)
Dingo Firestorm by Ian Pringle
Some more I am probably forgetting...
Also have read Handful of Hard men, 3 sips of gin, Ian Smith's book as well as the memoirs of John Alan Coey, an American who died fighting in Rhodesia.
I'm personally slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun, but as much as I recognise that Mugabe et al were awful, Rhodesia's racially exclusive system denied basic political rights to the Black majority, undermining any claim to legitimacy. Even conservatives saw it as untenable: it bred unrest, invited international isolation, and made stable governance impossible. A minority ruling indefinitely without consent of the majority could never endure, morally or practically. What I am missing?!
Rhodesia had no apartheid system, qualifying for voting was based on education and property ownership rather than race, and the black tribal chiefs overwhelmingly supported Ian Smith, as did most of the black population until it was terrorized into thinking otherwise by the communist terrorists
One of the many aspects of the British government's hypocrisy over UDI was that at the very same time (and for several years afterwards), a part of the UK also had education and property qualifications tied to the vote.
In Northern Ireland, which had its own provincial parliament until the mid-70s, the franchise was limited to rate payers and their spouses - this was only a low property threshold (owning a home, however modest, in a society where home ownership was normal). Holders of university degrees received a second vote. I believe that business owners also received a second vote - hence a higher property threshold - but I can't confirm this online just at the moment.
At the time, there was a Protestant majority that almost entirely supported the preservation of the union with Britain, and a large Catholic minority that supported the unification of Ireland (but nested inside the latter was a small wealthier minority favoring the union with Britain).
The voting laws excluded more Protestants than Catholics from the franchise, simply due to the demographics. But the ratepayers', degree-holders' and business owner's votes, which could, of course, be compounded, ensured that the composition of the local parliament was strongly in favor of preserving the union with Britain. Catholic business owners with a degree had three votes, along with their Protestant counterparts (there was no religious qualification in the franchise). The cultural differences between the two parts of NI society were, of course, minimal, compared to the differences between the two parts of Rhodesian society.
The demographics were shifting already, since Protestant married couples had been given access to contraception (and their religious leaders no longer opposed it). But long before the Catholics became a majority, the parliament was suspended (1972) and then abolished (1973).
In any case, when Harold Wilson condemned Ian Smith for a franchise based on property and education qualifications, he knew very well (Smith perhaps didn't) that such qualifications were also imposed within the UK over which he presided.
Northern Ireland was an admirably reactionary outpost during the half century of its autonomous status (1921-72 or 73). The drawing of the borders in 1921 was a little naughty, since they unnecessarily included large pockets of Irish nationalists around the edges on land that could easily have been conceded to the Irish Free State for the sake of stability. NI is sometimes styled as "Ulster", but that historic entity was comprised of nine counties, whereas NI only had six counties, so there was nothing sacred about the exact course of the border for either side.
The unwinding of NI began in the second half of the 1960s when the Nationalist political leadership tiresomely organized a campaign of protest marches and civil disobedience, modelled on the MLK part of the "Civil Rights" movement (not on the Black Panthers!).
The Unionist establishment then made a grave error by failing to rein in the hotheads on its own side, who physically attacked Nationalist marches (convincing the Nationalists of the MLK parallels). At that stage, some genuine instances of corruption in the political system could have been sorted out, and a few minor compromises could have taken the wind out of the protest movement's sails. Instead, the attacks were allowed to build up until Nationalists were being driven out of their houses in the main cities. The British Army was sent in to restore order, but given the sporadic continuation of IRA terrorism from the 20s to the early 60s, this gave a pretext to the IRA remnant to start recruiting among urban youth, to threaten police informers with death, and to go to the Soviet Union for arms and other support. By the early 70s, the IRA was training alongside the PLO in a KGB-run training camp a little to the east of Moscow, under the supervision of Andropov, who also supplied the IRA with valuable arms shipments, through a chain of other countries (for plausible deniability). The terrorist campaign was now in full swing, with near daily bombings and shootings, and London had little choice but to take control of NI.
I'm just sketching in a few details here to balance what I said in the previous comment, which had concentrated on some parallels with Rhodesia. There were some marked dissimilarities as you can see, although the Soviet support for insurgents is a further overlap. The Soviet and PLO connections on the IRA side prompted many Unionists to side with both Israel and South Africa; I haven't yet unearthed any Unionist literature on Rhodesia, but I've not doubt that it is there to be found.
What are you missing? Since you've now ventured on to The American Tribune substack, why not read some of his articles on Rhodesia? You'll find various arguments against the assumptions you make in your comment.
Ian Smith's central contention was that universal suffrage would lead to the destruction of a modern state, and bring about suffering not just for the minority that had built that state, but for the majority also. He was correct, and you don't deny it, but you condemn the Rhodesian system as denying "basic political rights" and having no "claim to legitmacy". This, I'm sorry to say, is mere virtue signalling: you deplore the bad outcome (Mugabe's Zimbabwe), but condemn the only means of averting this outcome.
You also seem unaware that Rhodesia was not an apartheid society. Voting was not along color lines, but on the basis of a property threshold. A black Rhodesian who chose to participate in the European society that existed within the borders of Rhodesia, and whose efforts were met with some modest success, would have property holdings above the qualifying threshold and therefore a vote. White Rhodesians who did not meet the property criterion would not have a vote. Black Rhodesians who preferred traditional village life, by the plain meaning of those words lived outside of modern society and did not vote within it, any more than a white Rhodesian business owner would have be able to vote in a village alongside the elders. There were further political connections between the two societies, which you can explore for yourself if you have any interest in the matter (i.e. if your interest is not exhausted by virtue signalling).
Rhodesia was subjected to a terrorist onslaught, with factions lavishly sponsored by the Soviet Union and by China. The "conservatives" you mention preferred Communist sponsored terrorism to the peaceful co-existence of two societies in Rhodesia. Now Margaret Thatcher and Lord Carrington belonged to a party that carried the name "Conservative" - does the mere name suffice for you to consider their actions in favor of Communist-sponsored terrorism to be conservative actions?
I don't know what "to the right of Atilla the Hun" is supposed to mean - I've heard this tired jocularism many times before, but it is frivolous (Atilla the Hun was a destroyer of the European societies he overran, not a conserver of them). This aside, you tell us that you are to the right of Atilla the Hun, and that you also approve of self-styled conservatives giving their support to Communist-sponsored terrorism, and that this terrorism was preferable to the actual conservation of an "illegitimate" peaceful and prosperous society. I suggest you look up the term "concern trolling", if you're not already aware of it.
I really didn't think you'd be looking at the comments until you return from your honeymoon at the end of the week, so I presumptuously started writing the reply I thought you might have written. Then my desire to rub a concern troll's nose in his own mess took over, and the comment became longer than intended.
Thanks for your reply. I wasn’t trolling, I was genuinely curious. While I subscribe to the Substack, I regret that I simply don’t have time to read everything, and routinely end up by the weekend with 400-500 unread newsletter emails, from which I necessarily can only select a few to read, before archiving the remainder.
I have served overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other places, so I fully accept your proposition that certain populations are apparently incapable of effectively governing themselves.
Thank you for your military service, and I fully accept that you had no intention to troll (otherwise you wouldn't have written the comment I'm replying to now).
I tried to summarize what I knew of Rhodesia prior to my acquaintance with The American Tribune's writings (I read quite a lot of online writings of former Rhodesians over the years). He tends to take the destruction of Rhodesia not just as a past tragedy, but as a case study that offers lessons for the present, since the same decivilizing ideas that made the destruction of Rhodesia a (false) moral imperative, have further matured, and are threatening to bring down our own societies if they are not stopped.
If you can make time for one quite short article here on the subject, I sugget "Why Rhodesia Matters" which is open to all readers (I don't know if you have a paid subscription, as opposed to a free subscription, which is just a matter of email notifications).
You've probably encountered what the younger generation term "Edge-Lordism", which is a descent into a generalized right-wing nastiness that celebrates genuine racism, or flirts with Nazi-ism and so on. If so, I can understand your doubts or suspicions, but this certainly isn't the point of the site here. Do please acquaint yourself with a little Rhodesian history when you have time - I think you'll find it a fascinating story.
I really enjoyed “The Collapse of Rhodesia: Population Demographics and the Politics of Race” by Josiah Brownell. It’s more academic than these books, but focuses on an under studied aspect of the colonial regime.
Thank you!
That one is on my reading list, but I need to get to it soon, a number of people have said it is well worth reading
Love your writing and I am learning how bad my normie public school education was. How about the book i purchased on audible, “A handful of hard men”. I am thoroughly enjoying it.
That is a great one!
So far as the combat memoirs go, it is undoubtedly my favorite after Three Sips of Gin. However, I think Bax is a somewhat better writer and tells somewhat more interesting stories, so his edged out that one on this list
However, that one is still great, and one I really enjoyed reading
I have to say Mukiwa (and to a lesser degree the other two books in the series) are really a wonderful inside view of growing up during the main period of conflict. It contrasts well with the other works listed and the many soldierly accounts of the Rhodesian Bush War and the eras before and after.
Sure, it is written from a somewhat conventional center-liberal perspective, but because of this we get a very honest view that translates well to people who have grown up in the center-liberal world that dominates the Western political sphere.
To Peter Godwin’s credit, he doesn’t really pull punches or shield himself too much, and by simply describing the reality around him, race realism and survival really ooze out of his works despite his futile hope for a successful, peaceful, multiracial Zimbabwe.
I should note that the audiobook versions are particularly good because the author himself does the narration, and with his Rhodesian accent and emotion, it does make quite good listening. He also spent some time in the Rhodesian Security Forces during the war, so he’s not just writing from a journalistic or civilian perspective. I love Hannes Wessel, Ian Smith, et. al. but I find Mukiwa to be really broadly enlightening.
Ah, very interesting. I might have to listen, then.
Thanks! That one is on my list, but I haven't gotten to it yet
"Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight" is about a similar topic and reasonably good as well.
Alexander Fuller. Her autobiography. Don't Let's Go to the Dog's Tonight."Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969. In 1972 she moved with her family to a farm in Rhodesia. After that country’s civil war in 1981, the Fullers moved first to Malawi, then to Zambia." Fuller illustrates a searing narrative. Also, Scribbling The Cat, my story with an African Solder. Another rich visceral painting of war in Rhodesia.
Loved that one. I was trying to keep the list short, but Fuller’s work is a great additional read
Cool list, been meaning to get some books on Rhodesia, particularly the bush war and its combatants.
Here are two videos by a channel “Zoomer Historian” on videos related to Rhodesia:
https://youtu.be/hNbsEBuOLJI?si=_laXj34a5Py0v8tc
https://youtu.be/omhW742oHtY?si=qFh7ssgWUsgv-d__
Thanks! I love his account on Twitter, but always forget he has a YouTube channel.
If you’re going to start with one or two, Three Sips of Gin is fabulous, and A Pride of Eagles is a very readable general history, despite the nominal air force focus
Your welcome and thanks.
Around 10 years ago I discovered the history of Rhodesia and South Africa and was stunned how this rather recent history had been sort of hidden like a dirty secret. So I read a bunch of books and memoirs to learn why:
Weep For Africa by Jeremy Hall
Beyond No Mean Soldier by Peter Mcaleese
Bush War Operator by AJ Balaam
A Walk Against the Stream by Tony Ballinger
Fireforce by Chris Cocks
The Bleed by John Cronin (American who fought in Vietnam and went to Rhodesia)
Dingo Firestorm by Ian Pringle
Some more I am probably forgetting...
Also have read Handful of Hard men, 3 sips of gin, Ian Smith's book as well as the memoirs of John Alan Coey, an American who died fighting in Rhodesia.
Thanks for the list! I haven’t heard of a few of these, will add them to my reading list.
“Fire Fight” by Chris Cocks
“White Tribe” by Robin Moore, a novel, he also wrote Murder on the Orient Express
Moore’s “Rhodesia” is quite good as well.
I think you mean “Fire Force” by Chris Cocks. That one I thought was ok, but Three Sips of Gin is a much better read
I'm personally slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun, but as much as I recognise that Mugabe et al were awful, Rhodesia's racially exclusive system denied basic political rights to the Black majority, undermining any claim to legitimacy. Even conservatives saw it as untenable: it bred unrest, invited international isolation, and made stable governance impossible. A minority ruling indefinitely without consent of the majority could never endure, morally or practically. What I am missing?!
This isn't true
Rhodesia had no apartheid system, qualifying for voting was based on education and property ownership rather than race, and the black tribal chiefs overwhelmingly supported Ian Smith, as did most of the black population until it was terrorized into thinking otherwise by the communist terrorists
One of the many aspects of the British government's hypocrisy over UDI was that at the very same time (and for several years afterwards), a part of the UK also had education and property qualifications tied to the vote.
In Northern Ireland, which had its own provincial parliament until the mid-70s, the franchise was limited to rate payers and their spouses - this was only a low property threshold (owning a home, however modest, in a society where home ownership was normal). Holders of university degrees received a second vote. I believe that business owners also received a second vote - hence a higher property threshold - but I can't confirm this online just at the moment.
At the time, there was a Protestant majority that almost entirely supported the preservation of the union with Britain, and a large Catholic minority that supported the unification of Ireland (but nested inside the latter was a small wealthier minority favoring the union with Britain).
The voting laws excluded more Protestants than Catholics from the franchise, simply due to the demographics. But the ratepayers', degree-holders' and business owner's votes, which could, of course, be compounded, ensured that the composition of the local parliament was strongly in favor of preserving the union with Britain. Catholic business owners with a degree had three votes, along with their Protestant counterparts (there was no religious qualification in the franchise). The cultural differences between the two parts of NI society were, of course, minimal, compared to the differences between the two parts of Rhodesian society.
The demographics were shifting already, since Protestant married couples had been given access to contraception (and their religious leaders no longer opposed it). But long before the Catholics became a majority, the parliament was suspended (1972) and then abolished (1973).
In any case, when Harold Wilson condemned Ian Smith for a franchise based on property and education qualifications, he knew very well (Smith perhaps didn't) that such qualifications were also imposed within the UK over which he presided.
Very interesting. Embarassingly, I didn’t know this about Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland was an admirably reactionary outpost during the half century of its autonomous status (1921-72 or 73). The drawing of the borders in 1921 was a little naughty, since they unnecessarily included large pockets of Irish nationalists around the edges on land that could easily have been conceded to the Irish Free State for the sake of stability. NI is sometimes styled as "Ulster", but that historic entity was comprised of nine counties, whereas NI only had six counties, so there was nothing sacred about the exact course of the border for either side.
The unwinding of NI began in the second half of the 1960s when the Nationalist political leadership tiresomely organized a campaign of protest marches and civil disobedience, modelled on the MLK part of the "Civil Rights" movement (not on the Black Panthers!).
The Unionist establishment then made a grave error by failing to rein in the hotheads on its own side, who physically attacked Nationalist marches (convincing the Nationalists of the MLK parallels). At that stage, some genuine instances of corruption in the political system could have been sorted out, and a few minor compromises could have taken the wind out of the protest movement's sails. Instead, the attacks were allowed to build up until Nationalists were being driven out of their houses in the main cities. The British Army was sent in to restore order, but given the sporadic continuation of IRA terrorism from the 20s to the early 60s, this gave a pretext to the IRA remnant to start recruiting among urban youth, to threaten police informers with death, and to go to the Soviet Union for arms and other support. By the early 70s, the IRA was training alongside the PLO in a KGB-run training camp a little to the east of Moscow, under the supervision of Andropov, who also supplied the IRA with valuable arms shipments, through a chain of other countries (for plausible deniability). The terrorist campaign was now in full swing, with near daily bombings and shootings, and London had little choice but to take control of NI.
I'm just sketching in a few details here to balance what I said in the previous comment, which had concentrated on some parallels with Rhodesia. There were some marked dissimilarities as you can see, although the Soviet support for insurgents is a further overlap. The Soviet and PLO connections on the IRA side prompted many Unionists to side with both Israel and South Africa; I haven't yet unearthed any Unionist literature on Rhodesia, but I've not doubt that it is there to be found.
Very interesting
What are you missing? Since you've now ventured on to The American Tribune substack, why not read some of his articles on Rhodesia? You'll find various arguments against the assumptions you make in your comment.
Ian Smith's central contention was that universal suffrage would lead to the destruction of a modern state, and bring about suffering not just for the minority that had built that state, but for the majority also. He was correct, and you don't deny it, but you condemn the Rhodesian system as denying "basic political rights" and having no "claim to legitmacy". This, I'm sorry to say, is mere virtue signalling: you deplore the bad outcome (Mugabe's Zimbabwe), but condemn the only means of averting this outcome.
You also seem unaware that Rhodesia was not an apartheid society. Voting was not along color lines, but on the basis of a property threshold. A black Rhodesian who chose to participate in the European society that existed within the borders of Rhodesia, and whose efforts were met with some modest success, would have property holdings above the qualifying threshold and therefore a vote. White Rhodesians who did not meet the property criterion would not have a vote. Black Rhodesians who preferred traditional village life, by the plain meaning of those words lived outside of modern society and did not vote within it, any more than a white Rhodesian business owner would have be able to vote in a village alongside the elders. There were further political connections between the two societies, which you can explore for yourself if you have any interest in the matter (i.e. if your interest is not exhausted by virtue signalling).
Rhodesia was subjected to a terrorist onslaught, with factions lavishly sponsored by the Soviet Union and by China. The "conservatives" you mention preferred Communist sponsored terrorism to the peaceful co-existence of two societies in Rhodesia. Now Margaret Thatcher and Lord Carrington belonged to a party that carried the name "Conservative" - does the mere name suffice for you to consider their actions in favor of Communist-sponsored terrorism to be conservative actions?
I don't know what "to the right of Atilla the Hun" is supposed to mean - I've heard this tired jocularism many times before, but it is frivolous (Atilla the Hun was a destroyer of the European societies he overran, not a conserver of them). This aside, you tell us that you are to the right of Atilla the Hun, and that you also approve of self-styled conservatives giving their support to Communist-sponsored terrorism, and that this terrorism was preferable to the actual conservation of an "illegitimate" peaceful and prosperous society. I suggest you look up the term "concern trolling", if you're not already aware of it.
Thanks for this thoughtful and long explanation! Very helpful
I really didn't think you'd be looking at the comments until you return from your honeymoon at the end of the week, so I presumptuously started writing the reply I thought you might have written. Then my desire to rub a concern troll's nose in his own mess took over, and the comment became longer than intended.
Ha, you were right, I just got back last night. It was a very solid comment, thanks again for writing it!
Thanks for your reply. I wasn’t trolling, I was genuinely curious. While I subscribe to the Substack, I regret that I simply don’t have time to read everything, and routinely end up by the weekend with 400-500 unread newsletter emails, from which I necessarily can only select a few to read, before archiving the remainder.
I have served overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other places, so I fully accept your proposition that certain populations are apparently incapable of effectively governing themselves.
Thanks again for your reply.
Thank you for your military service, and I fully accept that you had no intention to troll (otherwise you wouldn't have written the comment I'm replying to now).
I tried to summarize what I knew of Rhodesia prior to my acquaintance with The American Tribune's writings (I read quite a lot of online writings of former Rhodesians over the years). He tends to take the destruction of Rhodesia not just as a past tragedy, but as a case study that offers lessons for the present, since the same decivilizing ideas that made the destruction of Rhodesia a (false) moral imperative, have further matured, and are threatening to bring down our own societies if they are not stopped.
If you can make time for one quite short article here on the subject, I sugget "Why Rhodesia Matters" which is open to all readers (I don't know if you have a paid subscription, as opposed to a free subscription, which is just a matter of email notifications).
You've probably encountered what the younger generation term "Edge-Lordism", which is a descent into a generalized right-wing nastiness that celebrates genuine racism, or flirts with Nazi-ism and so on. If so, I can understand your doubts or suspicions, but this certainly isn't the point of the site here. Do please acquaint yourself with a little Rhodesian history when you have time - I think you'll find it a fascinating story.