The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe by Peter Godwin

The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe by Peter Godwin, 371 pages, History.
Godwin, a journalist and former lawyer, starts this account of the history of Zimbabwe with some personal notes. He was born there when it was Rhodesia, and spent his childhood and adolescence there. His mother, now resigned to her life in some sort of retirement home in London, had been a practicing physician in Zimbabwe for many years, and (as we were to find out) was fondly remembered by many nurses in that country. Godwin, for the most part, skips over the causes of the civil war that ended with Rhodesia becoming Zimbabwe, except where there is a personal note related to someone he is talking to or about in the book or where the war intersected with the career of Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe has been the elected leader of Zimbabwe since its founding in 1980. Not all of those elections have been above-board, and those who voted for the opposing candidates often suffered reprisals. The beatings, torture, arrests, and killings that were precipitated by the recent 2008 elections were the worst by far. Godwin does a good job documenting the abuses, travelling around the land with his sister, a former Zimbabwean news reporter, and talking to people in the areas that voted strongly for the opposition (the Movement for Democratic Change or MDC). They visit victims in their burnt out villages, in exile in neighboring South Africa, and in lots and lots of hospitals and clinics around Zimbabwe.
Godwin also gets to spend time with some of the MDC leaders, Tendai Biti, Roy Bennett, and the eventual Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, learning from them how desperate the situation has become for all Zimbabweans.
What starts out a little unevenly, relying too much on information about Godwin, becomes a compelling story of a country that was once the shining example of a successful post-colonial democracy, but has now lost direction in its policies and politics, humanity among its leaders, and hope for its starving and beaten people.