The title of this book is very well chosen, because it reasons persuasively that struggles over land pervade the colonial and post-colonial history of this in-origin settler state. The book is a combination of chapters on land policy in general, and specific studies of two communal areas: Insiza in Matabeleland and Chimanimani in the south-east of the country. The first four chapters interpret land issues in colonial history. Jocelyn Alexander stresses the diversity of actors and the diversity of responses, rather than the mere imposition of policies. It is in that respect a worthy successor in the line of the Dar School of historiography, stressing African initiative rather than mere subjugation. This is most striking when she writes about the relationships between chiefs and colonial authorities. The description of the situation at the end of the colonial period is particularly apt: ‘Land claims drew on a bewildering range of grounds – nationalist, technical, historical and customary – and they were made by an equally bewildering diversity of authorities, from the different rungs of the “tribal” hierarchy, to nationalists, evictees, kin and officials. By granting chiefs authority over land and calling it “customary”, officials could not hope to contain these forces’ (p. 88).

The second part of the book is particularly valuable, because of the insights into what happened at the local level in the period after independence. The emerging patterns are very different from the honeymoon image that the Mugabe government enjoyed in many circles during the first two decades after independence. That is not surprising in Insiza, because it was a ZAPU area, and the struggle between the parties intermeshed with conflicts about land and cattle. ZANU(PF) tried to implant quite rigorous land use planning. The virtue is again that the book does not reason in terms of linear conflict. For example, the land use planners gained allies with different goals than those advocated in the policies: ‘They saw fencing as a way of keeping cattle out of fields, not as a way of managing land’ (pp. 144–5). ZANU(PF) seemed to strike root in Chimanimani: ‘Squatters made particularly effective use of party allegiance as Mutare's frustrated District Administrator attested: “if you want to see them you have to go through party structures before you can speak to them”’ (p. 155). However, the author stresses again the instrumental nature of allegiances: ‘local leaders sought to establish claims over land both in cooperation with and in opposition to officials. Their attitudes were shaped by local conflicts rather than the technical merit of policies’ (p. 173).

It is, however, oddly contradictory that at the same time there is a line in the narrative stressing a modernist hegemonic project over agriculture in Zimbabwe. Alexander refers in this respect, often with approval, to Michael Drinkwater's interpretation, which is highly flawed in this regard. The project was not at all as hegemonic as Drinkwater claims. Alexander admits at a crucial point: ‘this did not mean as Drinkwater argues, that “throughout the technical development phase”, officials “remain confident and complacent about the presumed benefits of the policies they were enforcing”. In fact, Native Affairs Department economists began to admit that their understanding of African production systems was badly wrong in the mid 1950s’ (p. 49). Later in the book, it appears also that some of the land use planning had been selectively accepted by some people: ‘Vidco chairmen and sabukhus cooperated in trying to stop the extension of fields and the reversing of lines that had resulted from people building homes and cultivating grazing areas in the 1970s and early 1980s’ (p. 142).

It is obvious that this book is rich in empirical material and insights, yet it reads also as a contribution to topics that need further study and debate. This is most obvious when Alexander talks about the most dramatic elements in the story: the Matabeleland killings and the land invasions that make up the Third Chimurenga. It reads as a shallow explanation that the Matabeleland killings ‘combined an authoritarian populism with the political habits of the war years’ (p. 107). Something more was at stake than bad habits that the party had to grow out of. It would be a good thing if there were throughout the book more engagement with other interpretations, for example Ian Phimister's analysis of class factors in resistance to the NHA. His analysis is dismissed in a few lines on p. 50. Above all, it would be good if the Chimanimani material in this book were brought into dialogue with the insights of Alex Bolding in his Wageningen doctoral thesis, ‘In hot water’, on the Nyanadzi catchment area.

Nevertheless, it should be clear from the above that anybody interested in Zimbabwe and the relevance of its historical trajectory for African studies is highly recommended to read this book.