The international press has been awash with stories about Zimbabwe: land invasions, rigged elections, violence against the urban poor, evictions, but there are very few fully detailed accounts that attempt to explain and understand the current dynamics. Wolmer's book attempts to do just this by examining the central (and controversial) issue of land in Zimbabwe. Wolmer uses the physical and imaginative constructions of particular landscapes: how they are reshaped, imagined, re-imagined, represented and defined by different actors. There are competing views of the lowveld area of southern Zimbabwe as suitable for cattle production, for wildlife ranches, as a national park, as a sugar estate, appropriate for small holder farming, and as the ancestral home of the Shangaan. For Wolmer, the land invasions of 2000 opened a space to begin discussions about visions and uses of the lowveld that had previously been silenced by policy makers, the wildlife industry and cattle ranchers (p. 2). Wolmer argues that the different ways in which landscape has been represented are vitally important; further that these differing narratives have had a dramatic impact on the way landscape and the inhabitants have been acted upon, and that they have produced conflicts and struggles over meaning.

This book draws on a number of years of research in the region, and presents a wealth of knowledge which provides the reader with a rich and detailed account of the transition from ‘wilderness’ to ‘farm invasions’. This book does more than simply describe the dynamics of landscape in the lowveld: it allows us to gain a better of understanding of the broader issues and conflicts in Zimbabwean politics. It starts with an introduction to the historical understandings of landscape which continue to underpin some visions of the lowveld; for example, Wolmer points to the romantic visions of a wilderness area which still inform the calls for the development of a regional transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) encompassing protected areas in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe (the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park). Later chapters provide us with an explanation of the potentially competing visions of cattle ranchers, Shangaan communities, sugar estate owners, and private wildlife conservancies. Wolmer carefully shows how all these visions are manufactured in some way; for example, he argues that colonial and settler assumptions about Shangaan farmers persist in current arguments that they are not good agriculturalists, even though this presentation of Shangaan communities is very much at odds with innovative local farming practices (p. 87).

Chapter eight is especially useful for anyone who wants to understand the so-called farm invasions. Wolmer's research shows that these invasions are far from being a monolithic force, driven by common concerns and dynamics. Rather the invasions reveal a complex array of motives and practices. For example, some invasions were merely symbolic, whilst others resulted in occupations, fence cutting and ploughing of former white-owned farms. Equally, while most international press coverage pointed to the invasions as violent events that were politically orchestrated, Wolmer argues most were in fact peaceful (p. 180). He suggests that the invasions allowed for a reopening of political space for debate about alternative visions of land use and restitution of ancestral land which had been silenced until then. This book will be of interest to those working on issues of land distribution, representations of land, the land invasions and the wider dynamics of Zimbabwean politics. Wolmer carefully sets out his arguments and does so without falling into the trap of accepting the narrow ZANU-PF party line on land and the invasions as a blunt racial issue. For example, he shows how many of the land invasions were orchestrated by the eventual beneficiaries who were politically well connected and already economically well-heeled. In sum, I highly recommend this book.