This book examines the triumphs and tribulations of the Zimbabwean national project providing a radical and critical analysis of the fossilisation of Zimbabwean nationalism against the wider context of African nationalism in general. The book departs radically from the common praisetexts in seriously engaging with the darker aspects of nationalism including its failure to create the nationaspeople and to install democracy and a culture of human rights. The author examines how the various people inhabiting the lands between the Limpopo and Zambezi Rivers entered history and how violence became a central aspect of the national project of organising Zimbabweans into a collectivity in pursuit of a political end.