BOOK REVIEWS 75The Making of Zimbabwe: Decolonization in Regional and InternationalPolitics By M. Tamarkin. London, Cass, 1990, ix, 326 pp., ISBN 0-7146-3355-0, £30,00.This is a study of the various attempts to solve the Rhodesian problem bynegotiation from the time of the Lisbon coup in 1974 down to the LancasterHouse conference in 1979. The main focus is on the activities of outsideinterested parties Š South Africa, the Front-line States, Britain and theUnited States. The contestants themselves Š the Rhodesian FrontGovernment and the Zimbabwean nationalistsŠthus appear to be reactingto events rather than making them, although the author does give thebasic information on the progress of the war and its effects on the Whiteeconomy and society. This is a useful corrective to the one-sided tri-umphalism of Martin and Johnson's Struggle for Zimbabwe,' the more so asTamarkin's approach is factual and fair.The drawback of this factual, descriptive account (and descriptive itis in spite of some short-lived theoretical considerations in the Introduction)is that there is no overall analysis of why the contestants, their patronsand the global players did what they did, nor is there any engagement withthe interpretations of other writers on the subject. Nothing publishedsince 1985 appears to have been consulted, with the result that Flower'sServing Secretly2 and Ellert's Rhodesian Front War3 have not been takeninto account Š nor, surprisingly, has the best single survey of the war,Moorcraft and McLaughlin's Chimurenga.4 Indeed, the sources used for thestudy are mainly newspapers and radio broadcasts Š the 1 500 referencesto which, incidentally, are savagely abbreviated without any key or listingso that the first task of any serious reader is to painstakingly compile analphabetical list of the abbreviations employed so that the sources can beidentified, a task one would have thought that the editors at Frank Cassshould have performed for a book that costs £30,00 (approx. Z$400,00).The study ends (in December 1979) as abruptly as it began (in April1974) with as little assessment of why Lancaster House succeeded, asthere was explanation of who was fighting whom for what at the beginning.In short, this book seems to have been written for the specialist forwhom it will be a useful reference source to check what happened when.The 'whys and wherefores' remain to be written.University of Zimbabwe R. S. ROBERTS! D. Martin and P. Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe: The Chimurenga War (Harare,Zimbabwe Publishing House; London, Faber, 1981), 23.2 K. Flower, Serving Secretly: An Intelligence Chief on Record (Harare, Quest; London,Murray, 1987).3 H. Ellert, Rhodesian Front War: Counter-Insurgency and Guerrilla War in Rhodesia. 1962-1980 (Gweru, Mambo, 1989).1 P. Moorcraft and P. McLaughlln, Chimurenga: The War in Rhodesia, 1965-1980(Marshalltown, Sygma, 1982).