Voices from the Rocks is a remarkable work of scholarship. For Ranger, former Rhodes Professor, and since May last year, an Ndebele induna, this book is a triumphant step in a career dedicated to understanding this part of Africa. -- Peter Fry * THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *
Ranger's book is clearly an impressive historical contribution to the understanding of modern Zimbabwe. It is also a model for those who seek to explain how settler logic conflicted with African culture. It belongs to a handful of local histories which truly illuminate the complex process by which Africans confronted and resisted European colonization and adapted to post-colonial realities. -- Patrick Chabal * INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS *
...a rare gem of a book... -- Heidi Glaesel * AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW *
The notable lack of detailed accounts of the modern history of those other Zimbabweans, the Ndebele, with whom this book is concerned, owed much to the prolonged struggle between Zimbabwe's ruling party and their Ndebele opponents which closed the region, if not the National Archives, to researchers. With the emergency restrictions lifted, Ranger began the intensive interviewing in Matopo District; the richness and intensity of this evidence and the excellence of its analysis makes this book both strikingly original and intellectually intriguing. For Zimbabweans both black and white, these distinctive hills have a special place in their shared but tragic history... This is a wonderfully imaginative and intelligent book by a great scholar at the height of his powers. -- Richard Rathbone * THE ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW *
This important and original book deals with many themes pertinent to postcolonial research. Terence Ranger, a leading historian of nationalism and religion, skilfully employs regional history to chronicle and analyse on the one hand the practice of colonialism and its appropriation of land and manipulation of culture, science, and landscape and, on the other; popular resistance to colonial rule. -- Peter Limb * INTERVENTIONS *
