Timothy Scarnecchia

Born in Warren, Ohio, I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After doing my BA at University of Michigan, I entered the Ph.D program there in History. Active in the anti-apartheid movement in the mid-1980s, I turned to African history and received a Fulbright-Hays fellowship after studying ChiShona for three years at Michigan State University. My dissertation fieldwork brought me in contact with a cross-section of Zimbabweans, including my research assistants who were from Highfield, Warren Park, and Mbare. In addition, I worked with faculty at the University of Zimbabwe's department of economic history and their talented honors students. After returning to the US and completing my Ph.D at the University of Michigan, I taught for a year at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte in a visiting position. The next year, I went to Kampala, Uganda, and was a research affiliate at the Makerere Institute for Social Research. After that, I taught for two years as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan's department of history and Center for Afro-American and African Studies. I spent the next four years living in Washington DC raising our daughter and working in DC. In 2002, I started teaching at Georgetown University as a visiting professor in the department of history and the School of Foreign Service. In 2004, I continued to teach as a professorial lecturer there. In 2007, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to return to my 'home area' of Northeast Ohio and begin a tenure track position in the department of history at Kent State.

Scarnecchia's latest book now available as Open Access: 

Race and Diplomacy in Zimbabwe: The Cold War and Decolonization, 1960–1984

Scarnecchia's first book is The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe: Harare and Highfield, 1940-1964 (University of Rochester Press, 2008).  (Which was reprinted in Paperback in October 2013 by the University of Rochester Press.) 

Recent publications:

Timothy Scarnecchia,  "Renegotiating Frontline State Relations after Zimbabwe’s Independence. Cold War Influences on the Politics of Zimbabwe’s Role in Frontline State Solidarity, 1980-1986" (doi: 10.30461/107874) Rivista italiana di storia internazionale (ISSN 2611-8602) Fascicolo 1, gennaio-giugno 2023 (https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.30461/107874)

co-authored with Eric Makombe, “A Brief History of Urban Youths in Zimbabwe: 1980-2020” in Rory Pilossof (ed.), Fending for Ourselves: Youth in Zimbabwe 1980-2020 (Harare: Weaver Press 2021) (https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/fending-for-ourselves)

Timothy Scarnecchia, “Post-1989 Cold War Diplomatic Shifts in Southern Africa” Comparativ (Leipzig) 29: 5 2019 74-89.

Recent and Forthcoming Publications: 

CHAPTER FORTHCOMING

“Politics as war: Five historical myths about Zimbabwean Cold War politics” in Astrid Rasch, Minna Niemi, and Amanda Hammer (eds), The Politics of the Past in Zimbabwe (Brill, forthcoming, 2025)

CHAPTERS IN PROGRESS (SUBMITTED):

"'You have to boil water to make tea': the impact on cross-border raids on the Frontline States, Rhodesian, and Patriotic Front negotiations, 1976-1979" a chapter for Sue Onslow, Hugh Pattenden, and Carl Watts (eds), Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence: National, International, and Transnational Perspectives. (Bloomsbury Academic, forthcoming, 2025)

 “Unipolar Aftershock: Africa at end of the Cold War” a chapter forEvert Kleynhans and Marco Wyss (eds), Africa’s Cold Wars (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

CHAPTER IN PROGRESS:

“Did Democracy ever have a chance in Zimbabwe?”  a chapter for Democracy and Development in Sub Saharan Africa from the 1990s to the mid-2020s: A Historical Challenge, edited by T. Scarnecchia and C. Tornimbeni (under contract with James Currey Press).

BOOK REVIEWS

Black Soldiers in the Rhodesian Army: Colonialism, Professionalism and Race. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024, by M. T. Howard, for Perspectives on Politics 23, no. 1 (2025): 336–338.

Mugabe’s Legacy: Coups, Conspiracies, and the Conceits of Power in Zimbabwe by David B. Moore, London: Hurst 2023, for The Journal of Modern African Studies 62, no. 3 (2024): 309–11.

African Activists in a Decolonising World: The Making of an Anticolonial Culture, 1952-1966. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023, by Ismay Milford.  Moderator for H-Diplo Roundtable Review Published online 13 December 2024.

Pan-Africanism Versus Partnership: African Decolonisation in Southern Rhodesian Politics, 1950-1963. New York: Springer, 2023. by Brooks Marmon, Southern Journal for Contemporary History 2024 49(1):1-4 28 June 2024,

US Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War in Africa, by Flavia Gasbarri, Moderator for H-Diplo Roundtable Review 15-30, February 19, 2024.