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.

New co-edited volume forthcoming:

Professor Scarnecchia has a co-edited volume forthcoming in March 2026:

The book, co-edited with Corrado Tornimbeni, Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2000-2025

A Political Historical Reassessment (James Currey, forthcoming March 2026). This volume includes a co-authored introduction with Corrado Tornimbeni and Arrigo Pallotti, and single-authored case study chapter, entitled, “Did Democracy ever have a chance in Zimbabwe? Performative democracy within a militarized state, 2000-2025”

Scarnecchia's book is 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:

"'You have to boil water to make tea': the impact of 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 2025).

“Politics as war: Five historical myths about Zimbabwean Cold War politics” in A. Rasch, M. Niemi, and A. Hammer (eds), The Politics of the Past in Zimbabwe. Brill 2025, 256–278.