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Robert Mugabe and the Will to Power in an African Postcolony

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Authors:
  1. William J. Mpofu

    1. Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

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  • Presents a highly original argument for rethinking the figure of Mugabe through the perspective of the Will to Power
  • Examines the figure of Mugabe and his politics through a range of philosophical concepts, from Nietzsche to Machiavelli and Mbembe to Dussel
  • Appeals to scholars and students of politics, philosophy, sociology, psychology, history, and development studies

Part of the book series: African Histories and Modernities (AHAM)

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-ix
    Download chapter PDF

  2. The Birth of the Symptom in the Postcolony

    • William J. Mpofu
    Pages 1-52

  3. The Will to Power in the Postcolony

    • William J. Mpofu
    Pages 53-112

  4. The Inventions of Robert Mugabe

    • William J. Mpofu
    Pages 113-170

  5. When the Monsters Go Marching In: Mugabe the Production and Its Spectacles

    • William J. Mpofu
    Pages 171-224

  6. A Career of Madness: Performances of the Will to Power

    • William J. Mpofu
    Pages 225-304

  7. The Return of the Symptom in the Postcolony

    • William J. Mpofu
    Pages 305-344

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 345-402
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Keywords

About this book

This book is a philosopher’s view into the chaotic postcolony of Zimbabwe, delving into Robert Mugabe’s Will to Power. The Will to Power refers to a spirited desire for power and overwhelming fear of powerlessness that Mugabe artfully concealed behind performances of invincibility. Nietzsche’s philosophical concept of the Will to Power is interpreted and expanded in this book to explain how a tyrant is produced and enabled, and how he performs his tyranny. Achille Mbembe’s novel concept of the African postcolony is mobilised to locate Zimbabwe under Mugabe as a domain of the madness of power. The book describes Mugabe’s development from a vulnerable youth who was intoxicated with delusions of divine commission to a monstrous tyrant of the postcolony who mistook himself for a political messiah. This account exposes how post-political euphoria about independence from colonialism and the heroism of one leader can easily lead to the degeneration of leadership. However, this book is as muchabout bad leadership as it is about bad followership. Away from Eurocentric stereotypes where tyranny is isolated to African despots, this book shows how Mugabe is part of an extended family of tyrants of the world. He fought settler colonialism but failed to avoid being infected by it, and eventually became a native coloniser to his own people. The book concludes that Zimbabwe faces not only a simple struggle for democracy and human rights, but a Himalayan struggle for liberation from genocidal native colonialism that endures even after Robert Mugabe’s dethronement and death.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    William J. Mpofu

About the author

William Mpofu is a researcher at the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a founding member of the Africa Decolonial Research Network (ADERN), and recognised as a leading expert on the decolonisation of power, knowledge and being in the African university and polity.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Robert Mugabe and the Will to Power in an African Postcolony

  • Authors: William J. Mpofu

  • Series Title: African Histories and Modernities

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47879-7

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-47878-0Published: 05 March 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-47881-0Published: 06 March 2022

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-47879-7Published: 04 March 2021

  • Series ISSN: 2634-5773

  • Series E-ISSN: 2634-5781

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: IX, 402

  • Topics: African History, African Politics, Political Philosophy, Imperialism and Colonialism

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