Customer Reviews (1)

Great book about Rugby
It is a great book about the history of Rugby in Rhodesia and how it started. The international games and the scores. For Rugby lovers interested in the history of the game in a litle country in Africa. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good solid history of the counter-terrorist war in Rhodeasia
The books covers the period from 1965 through to 1980. I can't say it's riveting but it's a good solid well-written account with no political bias (as I thought there might be from the title). The book includes a good selection of photo's from the war as well as of many of the key figures. Also includes quite a bit of detail that I hadn't come across in other books on Rhodesia - an example: I had no idea that the Rhodeasian Army had managed to acquire T55 Tanks - apparantly sourced from Uganda. There's a photo of one of them in the book.

The book's 260 odd pages and divided into 3 parts. Part A (3 chapters, 40 pages) covers the roots of the conflict thru the period 1890-1965 and the first couple of rounds in the war (1965-1972 and 1972-1976). The second part (120 pages) describes the combatants - the Rhodeasian security forces, the guerilla "armies" and weapons and tactics. The third part, "the climax" covers the international politics, the social impact of the war, the fighting through the period 1977-1980 and the aftermath.

The books factual, doesn't gloss over the terrorist activites of the different factions, has some very good transcripts from actual raids (the transcript of the "Green Leader" exchange with Lusaka Air Traffic Control being an example) as well as good descriptions and illustrations of some of the raids / Fireforce actions. Also covers the political events adequately. Also quite an interesting chapter at the end on the transition to black rule and the merging of all the different armed groups into the Zimbabwe National Army.

All in all, an interesting and well-rounded account with no noticeable bias (unless you're a delusional idiot who believes that Mugabe was a saint and could/can do no wrong - in which case we're on different planets and you may ignore this review) and a good collection of black and white photo's.

The authors are, respectively, an ex-instructor at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst (Paul Moorcraft), then a lecturer at the University of Rhodeasia, then the University of Zimbabwe, then down in South Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand, and at the time of writing the book (1982), a full-time writer living in Joburg. Peter McLaughlin was a history grad from the University of Rhodeasia, with a doctoral stydu of the Rhodesian Armed Forces - he was a Police Field Reservist during the war. All in all, pretty good credentials to write a book on the subject. ... Read more