Essay Review: Turmoil and Tenacity: The Road to the Unity Accord

Turmoil and Tenacity is both an academic and political study. It could not have been otherwise given its inspiration and the occupations of its contributors. The project was inspired by the signing of the Unity Accord between ZANU(PF) and PF-ZAPU on 22 December 1987, which ended the second part of a ‘two-fold’ struggle which, in Banana’s words, was firstly ‘a struggle against a common enemy’, and secondly, an ‘internal struggle for national unity.The chapters in this book are uneven in size and quality, adding to variety but also to annoyance. Four chapters are very short, ranging from 3 to 7 pages; eight are slightly longer, ranging from 12 to 17 pages; another four chapters have between 25 and 35 pages; one chapter has 46 pages, and the longest has 66 pages. Five chapters do not have footnotes, twelve have endnotes, while two cite references within the text. The editor of this volume should have given the authors guidance on both these issues of length and preferred referencing system. My suspicion is that he did in fact do so, but, as is often the case when an assortment of people with varied backgrounds are involved in an assignment, there are bound to be some oversights and misreading of instructions. This confusion spoils an otherwise worthwhile effort, several chapters of which, particularly those by academics, could be developed into book-length manuscripts.

A Zambezia book review on Zimbabwean political history.