Rhodesia Robert Blake Pdf - A History Of

Examines the period after company rule when Southern Rhodesian settlers gained responsible government, focusing on the prime ministerships of Godfrey Huggins and Sir Roy Welensky.

| Theme | Blake (1977) | Later scholarship (e.g., Ranger, 1985; Scarnecchia, 2008) | |-------|--------------|----------------------------------------------------------| | 1896–97 War | “Mashona rebellion” | First Chimurenga as proto-nationalist | | UDI | Constitutional crisis | Illegitimate racial regime | | Nationalism | Mentioned via Nkomo and Sithole | Analyzed through internal ZANU/ZAPU splits and Dare reChimurenga | | Economic sanctions | Effective but slow | Shown to have fostered an extensive smuggling economy (South Africa, Portugal) |

Blake writes as a sympathetic but despairing liberal: he assumes Rhodesia’s collapse was inevitable but never interrogates why armed struggle succeeded where negotiation failed. The book ends with 1977, before the Lancaster House Agreement (1979) and Zimbabwean independence (1980).

3. Chronological Scope: From Kingdom to Unilateral Declaration