Historian Terence Ranger is no more

Ranger, on the left, with, among others, nationalist leaders Joshua Nkomo, third from the left, and Robert Mugabe, next to him.

Zimbabwean historian Terence Ranger (1929-2015) is no more. Ranger was central to the historiography of Rhodesian colonialism and a keen observer of post-independent Zimbabwe. In the image above, taken in 1962, Ranger is on the left. At the time he was being deported from Rhodesia. In middle Joshua Nkomo, then leader of the liberation movement ZAPU, and second from the right is Robert Mugabe, who broke away from ZAPU shortly after (1963) to form ZANU. We’re putting together some tributes on Ranger. Watch this space. Meanwhile, browse some of his wide bibliography and this excellent interview with Ranger.

Further Reading

The people want to breathe

In Tunisia’s coastal city of Gabès, residents live in the shadow of the phosphate industry. As pollution deepens and repression returns, a new generation revives the struggle for life itself.

After Paul Biya

Cameroon’s president has ruled for over four decades by silence and survival. Now, with dynastic succession looming and no clear exit strategy, the country teeters between inertia and implosion.

Leapfrogging literacy?

In outsourcing the act of writing to machines trained on Western language and thought, we risk reinforcing the very hierarchies that decolonization sought to undo.

Repoliticizing a generation

Thirty-eight years after Thomas Sankara’s assassination, the struggle for justice and self-determination endures—from stalled archives and unfulfilled verdicts to new calls for pan-African renewal and a 21st-century anti-imperialist front.

The king of Kinshasa

Across five decades, Chéri Samba has chronicled the politics and poetry of everyday Congolese life, insisting that art belongs to the people who live it.

Drip is temporary

The apparel brand Drip was meant to prove that South Africa’s townships could inspire global style. Instead, it revealed how easily black success stories are consumed and undone by the contradictions of neoliberal aspiration.