Book reviews

Culture, politics and language Miriam Basner, Am I an African? The Political Memoirs of H. M. Basner (Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 1993), xxi + 248 pp., £12.95 pbk, ISBN 1 86814 210 8. Paula Podbrey, White Girl in Search of the Party (Hadeda, Pietermarlitzburg, 1993), 204 pp., £9.99 pbk, ISBN 0 86980 904 0 Sadie Forman and André Odendaal (eds), A Trumpet from the Housetops: The Selected Writings of Lionel Forman (Zed, London, 1992), xxxiii + 230 pp., £12.95 pbk, £36.95 hbk; also published by David Philip and by Ohio University Press. ISBN 1 85649 046 7 pbk (Zed), ISBN 1 85649 046 9 hbk (Zed) Rob Nixon, Homelands, Harlem and Hollywood: South African Culture and the World Beyond (Routledge, New York and London, 1994), x + 305 pp., £14.99 pbk, ISBN 0415 908861 2. Nongenile Masithathu Zeriani, edited and introduced by Harold Scheub, The World and the Word. Tales and Observations from the Xhosa Oral Tradition (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison and London, 1992), 499 pp., £45.65 hbk, ISBN 0 299 13310 9 Norma Kitson (ed.), Zimbabwe Women Writers Anthology (Zimbabwe Women Writers, Harare, 1994, distributed by African Books Collective Ltd, Oxford), xiii + 252 pp., $21.50/£11.95 pbk, ISBN 07974133189. Richard Fardon and Graham Furniss (eds), African Languages, Development and the State (Routledge, London and New York, 1994), xii + 254 pp., £45 00 hbk, ISBN 0 415 09476 3. Anthropology Rita Astuti, People of the Sea. Identity and descent among the Vezo of Madagascar (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995), x+188 pp., hbk, ISBN 0 521 43350 9. Zimbabwe/Zambezi History David Beach, The Shona and their Neighbours (Blackwell, Oxford, 1994), xviii + 246 pp., £30.00 hbk, ISBN 0 631 17678 0. Landeg White, Bridging the Zambezi A Colonial Folly (Macmillan, London, 1993), xvii + 233 pp., £45.00 hbk, ISBN 0 333 55170 2. Political Economy M. Kankwenda (ed.), Zaire: What Destiny? (Codesria Book Series, no place of publication, distributed by African Books Collective, 27 Park End Street, Oxford, 1993), xviii + 376 pp., $30 pbk, ISBN 2 86978 024 9. Shawn H. McCormick, The Angolan Economy: Prospects for Growth in a Postwar Environment (Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, 1994), 78 pp., £6.95 pbk, ISBN 0 89206 187 1. Nancy Thede and Pierre Beaudet (eds), A Post Apartheid Southern Africa? (Macmillan Press, London, 1993). 177 pp., £40. The Military Laurie Nathan, The Changing of the Guard: Armed Forces and Defence Policy in a Democr