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A Juventude De Mandela (2011)

by David James Smith(Favorite Author)

3.44 of 5 Votes: 3

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Camões e Companhia

review 1: This was the first of many good reads during my last stay on Moorea in 2013. Many of us are well aware of the achievements of Nelson Mandela as a seasoned activist and politician in pre- and post- South Africa. This book is a very detailed account of a young man finding his place in a society that would not accept him as an equal. The description of his transition from non-violence to a recognition that violence may be the last driver of change is a rich one. David James Smith captures nicely the principles that guided Nelson's moral and political development over time. While acknowledging his accomplishments later in life, he casts an objective eye on some of the lapses that Nelson engaged in that only illustrates how complex and human Nelson Mandela was. I left the ... morebook behind so that others could appreciate it, but one of these days I will acquire another copy and add it to my library of books that matter.
review 2: Nelson Mandela is even more my hero after this warts-and-all biography. Not too many warts: a failed first marriage, some hanky-panky, lack of physical affection for his children and perhaps the bad decision to start a family while trying to free his country from, oh, white supremacy. If nothing else, read the first chapter—scenes from his trial—and you’ll get most of Mandela right there: dignified, eloquent, charismatic, decent, even Christ-like. The biography draws on new material and zooms in on picayune details only a historian can love. We follow Mandela as he joins the ANC, embraces white (mostly all Jewish!) and Indian comrades, pushing the ANC to radicalize. After non-violence leads to more violence by the apartheid state, he and his bumbling Communist comrades (never a Communist, but his Jewish allies were) start the ‘armed struggle’—bombs in post offices, amateur stuff. The bio ends as Mandela at 47 starts his 26 years in jail. How did evil apartheid endure all those decades? less

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