Customer Reviews

Apartheid's Friends: The Rise and Fall of South Africa's Secret Service

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Dr Nick Middleton is an allegedly upper-middle-class, seemingly soft-living geographer who has travelled and explored more than 70 countries and published books (as sole writer) going back as far as 1988.

However, "soft-living" is not a phrase that could be used to describe his exploits into the world's harshest - truly harshest - environments.

With an extremely (pun intended) engaging personality which is more apparent in the Channel Four programmes he's made than in his writing - Nick scribes with a sense of humility and honesty, but beyond explaining his motivations for going to such extreme locales never alludes to any personal details - meaning his books reveal little behind the man, the preference being to concentrate on travel and the environments themselves. This makes for objective correspondence, but also provides an enigma to the man behind it - a point, perhaps, that makes his work so totally engrossing and leaves you wanting, or rather needing, more.

The style with which he writes is far more accessible than that of say Jack London or Henry David Thoreau (okay, so Nick is contemporary - there lyeth the answer - but even so, he could, but doesn't, add any pretence) without elaborate allegories, but is also infinitely more enchanting than a lot of the more modern day off-the-beaten-track travel writers.

As a younger end Thirty Something, I always prefer the to see the middle aged exploring and writing about this type of travel, and along with Michael Palin, Nick Middleton is now well and truly a favourite. Of the younger generation of travel writer, I think only Simon Reeve comes close.
All in all, Nick Middleton's books on Extremes are truly fascinating works of brilliance. I only wish he'd cover some of the more anthropogenic extremes like Bhopal, Chernobyl (which he has said is on his list, but which is - unfortunately - no longer off-the-beaten-path, being as it's now a tourist attraction) The Banqioa Dam, Goianas, etc, as he did with Voz Island (Rebirth Island) in this book.

Many thanks Nick, congratulations on your first child.

This is a fantastic political, sociological, and security history of South Africa during the apartheid era. It says a lot about why the country is the way it is today. The only place this book falls short is in the editing. In places it was so bad that a reader stumbles over phrasing, dates, or information.

This old chap visits some really out of the way places you won't read about in many books.

He visits places out in the sticks and way off the normal tourist routes.

This is quite a fascinating read and provides amazing insight into the ancient "Silk Road."

Enjoy !

As a emigre from SA, I was looking forward to this book. Unfortunately, it is a summary of just about every single rumor that one can find about the Secret Services in the old SA....and then one is left hanging! I have gotten about half way and am pretty much giving up. Hopefully, edition 2 ( for we really do need an definitive narrative of all the dirty tricks and inhumanity under apardheid) or another book will be clearer, more concise and at least attempt some narrative that can be followed.