Awesome

Peter was born in 1958 I was born in 1962 in Rhodesia and left Zimbabwe in 2000 for New Zealand, this story brought back so many memories of my childhood, I was kept smiling all the way through. Thank you Peter.

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Superb book. Loved it from the start.

A well written book about growing up in Africa. I can't think of a more interesting book about Rhodesia and Zimbabwe.

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Brilliant and shocking

I knew the situation in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe was bad in a nebulous kind of way. This really paints a picture and fleshes it out. I could not stop listening once I started, a real page turner, so to speak. I particularly enjoyed Peter's voice as it just made it that much more real than if I had read it via book.

I think this book should be on the school curriculum because there are just so many lessons on so many levels. A fascinating listen which I thoroughly enjoyed even though it made me wince and left me shocked and appalled many times. Great listen for modern history and/or African buffs. Cannot rate it highly enough. Well done, Peter.

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Amazing story told so well

Having spent time in Rhodesia this book brought it all back to me. This is an amazing guy with a great story to tell.

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Great story teller

Peter Godwin is a consummate story teller and great narrator of his story about growing up in Rhodesia (in the days before Zimbabwe) and his war experiences doing national service in the police. I have just binged the three books in this series all well worth listening to.

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An emotional rollercoaster in the best way

Throughout the coarse of the book I found my self ossilating between wanting to buy a ticket on the next plane home and confirming an urge to never return. Peter describes the beauty of Zimbabwe and it's people as well as the terrible cruelty inflicted on its population. I really hope the remainder of the authors work are added to audible soon.

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Never gets old

A fabulous book that is hard to put down once you start. Great read for a book club

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Brilliant history well told

Excellent exposition of events of Peter’s life and a superb exposition of this nations history and trauma.

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My thoughts and some understanding

As I have a son-in-law who was raised in South In the country it given me some understanding about the country and it way off life and what they went through both black an white thank you for sharing your life thru the book

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A really well told personal account of the Rhodesian Bush War!

4 stars
A really well told personal account of the Rhodesian Bush War!

This is the second biography I have read on the Rhodesian Bush War, and the emergence of the country of Zimbabwe (I have already started with a third). A few weeks ago I remembered a line from Leonardo Di Caprio's character from the film Blood Diamond about growing up in Rhodesia.

Danny Archer from Blood Diamond
That's a - That's a polite way of putting it, ja. Mum was raped and shot and um... Dad was decapitated and hung from a hook in the barn. I was nine...

I realised I knew almost nothing about Rhodesia, or that it became Zimbabwe after the war. I began to read about the war and I began with ' Rainbow's End: A Memoir of Childhood, War and an African Farm, which is the story of Lauren St. John growing up in Rhodesia on a farm with her family supporting Ian Smith's policies. It is interesting to read as you can see how the author's view on the war changes after independence was declared. Initially she believed that the they were fighting the communist before coming to realise that it was actually a war of oppression. Again this made me think back to Blood Diamond.

Danny Archer from Blood Diamond:
We thought we were fighting communism, but in the end it was all about who gets what...

Peter Godwin's account was different to that of Lauren St. John. Unlike Lauren, Peter was first generation Rhodesian (Lauren was fourth generation) and mainly grew up in the cities and suburbs (Lauren grew up on vast farms). Unlike Lauren's family, Peter's family did not support Ian Smith and his ideas and believed in black majority rule. Another big difference for me is the attitudes toward the war. Lauren's family believed in the war and her father was a volunteer solider. Peter's family did not believe in the war, but Peter was conscripted and detested his time in the armed forces.

I very much enjoyed reading about Peter's account and how his views and values changed. From being a young boy who went to church with his black nanny every week, to a boy in an all white boys school, to his time being conscripted into the army and leading black soldiers, to his time defending "terrorists", to his time being declared an "enemy of the state"... Peter is honest with his observations about life in Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe, how things changed for both the better and worse and the sheer horror of war.

Both of the books are fantastic reads and I recommend them highly. I am loving learning about this topic and will continue to read different accounts of the war.

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