Chained Together:: Mandela, De Klerk, and the Struggle to Remake South Africa [Hardcover]

David Ottaway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 1993

A veteran foreign correspondent for The Washington Post portrays Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk, perpetually at odds and increasingly isolated, as they fight to create a new South Africa amid violence and factional in-fighting. 15,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With skepticism that is sometimes helpful and sometimes approaches jaundice, Ottaway, a former Washington Post correspondent in South Africa, offers his view of the tortuous political negotiations since 1990. By concentrating on the lives and work of the leaders--state president F. W. de Klerk and African National Congress head Nelson Mandela--Ottaway provides some useful insight, pointing to de Klerk's lieutenants as the true architects of reform, and showing how Mandela clashed with his own organization over the trial of his wife Winnie, whom the author compares to Evita Peron. But Ottaway's nearly exclusive focus on top-level negotiations leads him to fault the two isolated leaders for missing a "historic opportunity to become the first great bridge builders of the New South Africa," an assessment that does not take full account of the role of the media, businesses, and the townships of this country during its murky, wrenching transition. Had Ottaway broadened his lens a bit, his book would be richer and more nuanced.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 291 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (November 9, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812920147
• ISBN-13: 978-0812920147
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,908,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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