Elizabeth MacGonagle. Crafting Identity in Zimbabwe and Mozambique.(Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora.) Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press. 2007. Pp. ix, 192. $75.00

Elizabeth MacGonagle packs a 400-year sweep of history into a comparatively short volume on the Ndau people, who live in the border regions of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. She swims against the current of many contemporary social histories by emphasizing continuity rather than disruption and by seeking out the deep roots of contemporary ethnic identification rather than treating ethnicity as primarily an artifact of the colonial and postcolonial eras. This departure from current academic fashion is made possible by MacGonagle's vast array of sources, ranging from the sixteenth-century reports of Portuguese traders to interviews with Ndau elders alive today. Providing a valuable resource for historians and nonhistorians who live or work in the Ndau borderlands, this is the first comprehensive account of Ndau-ness.

The Ndau are a difficult group to ponder, as they have never constituted a distinct polity. Their...