The Zulus and Matabele
Warrior Nations by Glen Lyndon Dodds
This is the story of the two great warrior nations
that held sway in much of southern Africa during most of the nineteenth
century. Based on recent scholarship, it presents a lucid, authoritative
and enjoyable account of the histories of the Zulu and Matabele nations,
from their rise to power in the first half of the nineteenth century to
their downfall at white hands as the century drew to a close. It takes the
reader into the places of power and on to the fields of battle and
features some of Africa's most enduring heroes.
The book begins with a discussion of the reign of
Shaka, the highly controversial founder of the Zulu nation, before moving
on to the reign of Dingane, which witnessed bitter fighting between the
Zulus and migrant Boers in engagements such as the epic Battle of Blood
River. Consolidation and civil war followed before the Zulus found
themselves fighting for survival in the climactic war of 1879 against
imperial Britain, a war renowned for such battles as Isandlwana and
Rorke's Drift, and a war that led to the subsequent incorporation of
Zululand into the British Empire.
The chapters on the Matabele chart their emergence as
a nation under Mzilikazi, who clashed with both the Zulus and the Boers,
until their defeat by the British in the 1890s. The text concludes with a
discussion of recent events in Zulu and Matabele history, such as the end
of apartheid and Matabele involvement in the bloody war that resulted in
the creation of today's state of Zimbabwe.
