Includes bibliographical references (pages 629-631) and index.

"This is an authoritative work, spanning the last 60 years of Zimbabwe's history, told from the unique perspective of a first-hand witnesss. Reflecting his career initially as a human rights lawyer in Bulawayo and later, from 2000, as a member of Parliament for the MDC opposition party, Coltart's personal narrative in compelling and his scope broad. ... Coltart throws new light on the shaping and undoing of a country, from the obstinate racism of Ian Smith that provoked Rhodesia's UDI from Britain in 1965, the civil war of the 1970s which brought independence and hopeful democracy to a scarred nation, the Gukurahundi genocide of the 1980s and the terror of the Fifth Brigade, to Mugabe's war on white farmers and the urban poor, and seemingly unshakeable grip on power."--Back cover.