Mozambique’s Samora Machel
Title | Mozambique’s Samora Machel PDF eBook |
Author | Allen F. Isaacman |
Publisher | Ohio University Press |
Pages | 218 |
Release | 2020-09-08 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 0821447203 |
The precipitous rise and controversial fall of a formidable African leader. Samora Machel (1933–1986), the son of small-town farmers, led his people through a war against their Portuguese colonists and became the first president of the People’s Republic of Mozambique. Machel’s military successes against a colonial regime backed by South Africa, Rhodesia, the United States, and its NATO allies enhanced his reputation as a revolutionary hero to the oppressed people of Southern Africa. In 1986, during the country’s civil war, Machel died in a plane crash under circumstances that remain uncertain. Allen and Barbara Isaacman lived through many of these changes in Mozambique and bring personal recollections together with archival research and interviews with others who knew Machel or participated in events of the revolutionary or post-revolutionary years.
S is for Samora
Title | S is for Samora PDF eBook |
Author | Sarah LeFanu |
Publisher | |
Pages | 0 |
Release | 2012 |
Genre | Mozambique |
ISBN | 9780231703369 |
In 1974, Samora Machel led FRELIMO, the Mozambican Liberation Front, to victory over the Portuguese colonial government. The following year, he became the first president of an independent Mozambique. Eleven years later, he was killed in a mysterious plane crash, and many have blamed his death on machinations by the South African government. Drawing on stories, speeches, documents, and the memories of those who knew Machel well, this biography captures the many facets of a man Nelson Mandela has called "a true African revolutionary." Machel was trained as a nurse, yet later became a consummate military strategist. He was a farmer's son, yet possessed the diplomatic skills necessary to negotiate a relationship with China and the Soviet Union while winning over Western leaders like Margaret Thatcher. Machel was a man of the people who at the same time found himself utterly alone. A dedicated seeker of peace, he nevertheless never saw anything but war. This volume takes stock of the discourse of equality, liberty, and comradeship that motivated the liberation struggles of Machel's people and other southern African communities in the 1960s and 1970s, all in the face of a dominant Cold War rhetoric. It meditates on the different languages through which the Mozambican dream was articulated, including the linguistic currencies of anti-colonialism, anti-racism, and Marxism-Leninism, while exploring the gaps between then and now, between Mozambicans and Western idealists who wanted to be part of Machel's new society, and between Mozambicans themselves.
Samora Machel, a Biography
Title | Samora Machel, a Biography PDF eBook |
Author | Iain Christie |
Publisher | |
Pages | 228 |
Release | 1989 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN |
First published by Panaf in 1989, this was the first major biography of Samora Machel after his death in 1986. The author, a journalist who had known Machel since 1970, presents a portrait of Machel as a revolutionary, a military strategist and skilled politician - a charismatic leader and influential statesman who had "become a living and vibrant symbol of the liberation struggle's inevitable victory".
Samora Machel, an African Revolutionary
Title | Samora Machel, an African Revolutionary PDF eBook |
Author | Samora Machel |
Publisher | |
Pages | 248 |
Release | 1985 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN |
S Is for Samora
Title | S Is for Samora PDF eBook |
Author | Sarah Lefanu |
Publisher | |
Pages | 321 |
Release | 2012 |
Genre | Mozambique |
ISBN | 9780231800952 |
Mozambique on the Move
Title | Mozambique on the Move PDF eBook |
Author | |
Publisher | BRILL |
Pages | 308 |
Release | 2018-11-01 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 9004381104 |
This volume is a multi-disciplinary contribution to contemporary and historical dynamics that shape the vibrant cultural, political, economic and social world of Mozambique. Comprising a global range of scholars, the book serves as a generous introduction to Mozambique.
Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development
Title | Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development PDF eBook |
Author | Allen F. Isaacman |
Publisher | Ohio University Press |
Pages | 309 |
Release | 2013-04-10 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0821444506 |
Cahora Bassa Dam on the Zambezi River, built in the early 1970s during the final years of Portuguese rule, was the last major infrastructure project constructed in Africa during the turbulent era of decolonization. Engineers and hydrologists praised the dam for its technical complexity and the skills required to construct what was then the world’s fifth-largest mega-dam. Portuguese colonial officials cited benefits they expected from the dam—from expansion of irrigated farming and European settlement, to improved transportation throughout the Zambezi River Valley, to reduced flooding in this area of unpredictable rainfall. “The project, however, actually resulted in cascading layers of human displacement, violence, and environmental destruction. Its electricity benefited few Mozambicans, even after the former guerrillas of FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) came to power; instead, it fed industrialization in apartheid South Africa.” (Richard Roberts) This in-depth study of the region examines the dominant developmentalist narrative that has surrounded the dam, chronicles the continual violence that has accompanied its existence, and gives voice to previously unheard narratives of forced labor, displacement, and historical and contemporary life in the dam’s shadow.