The book on the overthrow of late former President Robert Mugabe by in a military backed transition is now out and available at selected outlets.
The book was written by historian Miles Tendi.
The Overthrow of Robert Mugabe: Gender, Coups, and Diplomats argues the 2017 coup that ousted long time Zimbabwean president Robert Gabriel Mugabe, and the generality of coups.
The book says the coup cannot be accurately and rigorously understood without examining the crucial role of gender and women’s politics in military seizures of power.
Tendi’s book shows that gender and women’s politics pervade military coup causes, dynamics, justifications, and international responses to coups.
Contrary to influential representations of Zimbabwe’s 2017 coup and other recent coups as markedly different from past coups, Tendi draws on long gendered histories of military coups in Africa to argue that there are significant continuities in coup characteristics across time.
Additionally, Tendi’s highly original study of Zimbabwe’s 2017 coup identifies the motives, dynamics, and trigger of the coup. Despite the existence of an international anti-coup norm and democracy promotion in Africa by Western states, Zimbabwean coup-makers’ direct intervention in politics was largely not publicly condemned or penalized by Western and African diplomats.
Tendi uses original interviews with diplomats and politicians involved in external responses to the coup, to address this important puzzle.
*Tendi is Solomon Mujuru/Rex Nhongo’s Biographer. Interests: Coups D’état; Gender & Politics; Intelligence Studies; Intellectuals & Politics; Militarism & Militarisation.
