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Title: Modern African Wars (1) 1965-80 : Rhodesia (Men at Arms Series, 183) by Peter Abbott, P. Abbott, Philip Botham, Manuel Ribeiro Rodrigues, Mike Chappell, Ron Volstad ISBN: 0-85045-728-9 Publisher: Osprey Publishing (UK) Pub. Date: 01 November, 1986 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: Concise and Complete Coverage
Comment: I spent almost all of my professional career concerned with the mapping of Africa. And in the course of mapping one scans and extracts a lot of information from various open sources. In the course of this study I became familiar with the social, economic, and military happenings in Southern Africa.
I can say that except for the works of Al J. Venter, a reporter from South Africa, there are very few books with detail on the bush wars conducted by black nationalists in opposition to the minority white rule resulting from colonialism. And often the insurgents had clashed among themselves for ethnic reasons and some blacks remained loyal to the minority governments.
In other cases, when the white rulers gave up and went home as did the Portuguese in Angola and Moçambique the remaining contenders began civil wars backed by the west and by the Communists respectively. In 1976, the Portuguese Army had revolted in protest to the endless bush wars in Africa and overthrew the government. The army had been especially disgusted with the conflict in defense of Portuguese Guinea-(now Guinea-Bissau) located on the shoulder of West Africa, a hot and worthless swamp land which had no economic value and a land where there were few white settlers.
In contrast, the Portuguese ruled lands in Southern Africa had a large settler class, intermarriage was common,for there was no color line there, as there was in English speaking colonies. But still the post independence unrest was such that most of the settlers migrated back to Portugal and some to Brazil. A civil war ensued which is still going on.
On the other hand, the struggle in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, was long and the white regime became an international pariah. The social structure was so unequal that half the land was owned by the whites who composed less than ten percent of the population. But the initial years of the peace settlement were so calm and benign that I feel that it was a positive influence on the South African settlement. Many whites who had fled to SA went back to Zimbabwe but in recent times unrest has broken out again. The socio-economic pie has yet to be fairly divvied up in Zimbabwe.

Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent and complete
Comment: Excellent review for the independence wars of Portuguese african colonies of the 60's and 70's decades. Covers the conflict deeply and describes all forces involved with accuracy. I expected to see something about Cubans in Angola, even in the third book of this series (MAA-242), but there is nothing about them, but in general it's a great book.