This volume explores the prehistory of human rights in Zimbabwe. It asks whether there are democratic legacies from pre-colonial polities and what limitations then existed on human rights. It also asks what colonialism contributed to the discourse of human rights and democracy despite its denial of both to Africans. Contents: pre- colonial states of Central Africa as embodiments of despotic culture; archaeological evidence of political structures; democracy and traditional political structure 1890-1999; imperial and settler hypocrisy and double standards and the denial of human rights; black elite responses to ideologies of democracy; the law courts in Rhodesia; interaction between white and black trade unionism; and the Build a Nation campaign, 1961-62.