European and African works have found it difficult to move past the image of Africa as a place of exotica and relentless brutality. This book explores the status and critical relationship between politics, culture, literary creativity, criticism, education and publishing in the context of promoting Africa's indigenous knowledge, and seeks to recover some of the sites where Africans continue to elaborate conflicting politics of self-affirmations. It both acknowledges and steps outside the protocols of analysis informed by nationalism, differentiating the forms that postcolonial theories have taken, and arguing for a selective appropriation of theory that emerges from Africa's lived experiences.

Empire and Cricket illuminates the complex relationship between cricket and the making of South African society between 1884 and 1914. This critical era for South Africa and the British Empire encompassed the economic revolution following: the discoveries of diamonds and gold, the South African or Anglo-Boer War, and the segregationist structuring of society. It is the gripping story of how cricket lay at the heart of social and political developments in South Africa and the wider British Empire, brought to life with numerous historic photographs of players and historic sites. The book's contributors describe how cricket acted as a vehicle for the Empire, and how it impacted race and class. It maps the role of the small and tightly knit white elite with overlapping interests in cricket, politics, and business, as well as the largely ignored world of the 'non-white' (African, 'colored, ' and Indian) cricketers and politicians. The close connection between politics and cricket goes back to the emergence of South Africa as a test playing country in the late 19th century. Cape Prime Minister Cecil John Rhodes included cricket in his drive to impose a segregationist structure in the African sub-continent, effectively ensuring the segregationist nature of South African cricket for much of the 20th century. The feats of those who first placed South African cricket on the international map are recalled, along with chronicles of many other unsung local heroes. Empire and Cricket explores the widespread enthusiasm for cricket among all of South Africa's communities, and the passion and success with which blacks played the game

In May 2005 the Government of Zimbabwe began 'Operation Murambatsvina'. Officially translated as 'Operation Clean-Up', the more literal meaning is 'getting rid of the filth'. The operation continued throughout the month of June, and affected virtually every town and rural business centre in the country. From Mount Darwin in the north to Beitbridge in the south, Mutare in the east and Bulawayo in the west, no part of the nation was spared; every day more buildings fell and families were displaced. In his introduction to The Hidden Dimensions Maurice Vambe argues that the treatment of people as 'human dirt' demands the notion of citizenship in Zimbabwe be rethought. The volume goes on to consider the historical antecedents to the operation, its hidden and unspoken consequences, its representations in the media and the social responses that were made to it.