Mandela: The Authorized Biography [Paperback]

Anthony Sampson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 12, 2000

Nelson Mandela, who emerged from twenty-six years of political imprisonment to lead South Africa out of apartheid and into democracy, is perhaps the world's most admired leader, a man whose life has been led with exemplary courage and inspired conviction.

Now Anthony Sampson, who has known Mandela since 1951 and has been a close observer of South Africa's political life for the last fifty years, has produced the first authorized biography, the most informed and comprehensive portrait to date of a man whose dazzling image has been difficult to penetrate. With unprecedented access to Mandela's private papers (including his prison memoir, long thought to have been lost), meticulous research, and hundreds of interviews--from Mandela himself to prison warders on Robben Island, from Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo to Winnie Mandela and F. W. de Klerk, and many others intimately connected to Mandela's story--Sampson has composed an enlightening and necessary story of the man behind the myth.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

British journalist Anthony Sampson first met Nelson Mandela in 1951, when Sampson was editing a black magazine in Johannesburg, and his biography of the leader benefits greatly from his long familiarity with South Africa and his access to the 81-year-old statesman's unpublished letters and documents. These are particularly helpful in chronicling Mandela's political and spiritual odyssey during 27 years in prison, when the fiery anti-apartheid militant condemned to life imprisonment in 1964 evolved into a dignified, authoritative leader convinced that "reconciliation would be essential to survival." The roots of this stance lie deep in African history; Sampson's excellent chapters on Mandela's rural youth remind readers that he was the aristocratic scion of a royal family who early imbibed the tribal tradition of ubuntu (mutual responsibility and compassion) and the local king's emphasis on ruling by consensus. South Africa's relatively peaceful transition to multiracial democracy owes much to Mandela's ability to voice these concepts in contemporary terms. And Sampson's detailed explication of the ins and outs of revolutionary politics over five decades--though sometimes heavy going for the general reader--vividly reveals how his subject achieved the political and moral maturity that made his 1994 election as the nation's first black president both inevitable and exhilarating. --Wendy Smith --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Perhaps no living historical figure, with the possible exception of Pope John Paul II, enjoys the worldwide honor and affection accorded Nelson Mandela. All the more remarkable, then, that Sampson, who first met Mandela in 1951, succeeds at the formidable task of writing a multifaceted portrait of Mandela as viewed through his interactions with the widest imaginable array of people, from heads of state to brutal, near-illiterate prison guards. "The prison years are often portrayed as a long hiatus in the midst of Mandela's political career," Sampson writes, "but I see them as the key to his development, transforming the headstrong activist into the reflective and self-disciplined world statesman." As Sampson sees it, this transformation was one in a series as Mandela evolved from favorite son of a minor chief to protectee of the tribal Regent, from an aristocrat accustomed to deference to a hard-working student in a missionary school meritocracy, from country boy to urban lawyer, from tribal-identified youth to committed multiracialist. Sampson makes much of Mandela's gift for befriending enemies, a gift that led to Mandela's role in South Africa's national reconciliation. Sampson notes, however, that the social and economic transformation Mandela saw as reconciliation's necessary corollary has yet to come to fruition. More than a comforting story of moral heroism, Sampson offers a gritty tale of a struggle unfinished. He manages to give readers a flawed, flesh-and-blood Mandela who is infinitely more interestingAand more admirable for being realAthan the myth. 24 pages of photos; maps not seen by PW. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 736 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (September 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679781781
• ISBN-13: 978-0679781783
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #302,192 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #25 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( M ) > Mandela, Nelson

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A well-told education in character and leadership., October 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mandela : The Authorized Biography (Hardcover)

If you believe there are no modern heroes - that fortitude and unselfish judgement in the face of adversity are out-of-date virtues, you need to read this book. That Sampson shows the whole man so well (with admittedly a few frailities) adds depth to the tremendous courage, excellent judgement, and magnanimity Mandela demonstrated his entire life, even when the cause of the ANC he led seemed hopeless. Along the way the book gives an excellent view of South African history during Mandela's adulthood. If you are not very familiar with Mandela or South Africa you might do better to start with Mandela's own book, "Long Walk to Freedom" which doesn't cover quite so much ground and is more on a human scale. Both books are inspiring.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sampson's work reflects his own class aspirations, June 18, 1999

By 

DR. BERNARD LEEMAN - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mandela : The Authorized Biography (Hardcover)

Sampson's book diminishes the achievement of Mandela by his failure to recognise that the years 1952-64 were not so much a struggle against the Pretoria regime but one for the leadership of the increasingly politicised African population. The postwar townships had thrown up a volatile society that found Mandela, Tambo, Lutuli and Sisulu too tied to the notion that status and education not policies and grass roots activism were enough to guarantee leadership. It is foolish to dismiss the Maoist attitudes of the Africanist Movement and their split into the PAC as motivated by dislike of communists. The ANC and their SACP allies were too elitist and undemocratic for the time. Mandela recognised this almost too late - Tambo changed the constitution in 1957 to stop the township hooligans" from taking over the party rather than deal with them. When the PAC campaign forced both ANC and PAC underground it was PAC activism that forced Mandela into violence and he again displayed his remoteness from the masses by having to rely on urban middle class white professionals to run his military campaign - Bernstein, Goldberg, Wolpe et al. By the time of Rivonia Mandela had been upstaged completely by the PAC and again in 1976 by Biko's movement. In 1980 the PAC army was massacred in its Tanzanian camp for opposing dialogue and detente, leaving an open field to the ANC (the present PAC has no connection with the real party). What Sampson fails to address is how Mandela, almost politically bankrupt in 1964, managed to emerge as a national leader. Sampson does not recognise that support for Mandela after 1964 came because even his rivals were appalled by such a savage sentence for what were quite innocuous activities. The ANC's moderate reformist political attitudes had driven away African support and only became acceptable once the cold war had ended and alternative doctrines had been discredited. Such a study would make Mandela a more facinating character. To portray his career as a sort of pre-ordained Messianic march backed all the way by adulating African masses is bad history and does Mandela injustice.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very good introduction to a deep man, September 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mandela : The Authorized Biography (Hardcover)

If you need to know Nelson Mandela, this is the book to read. This book's weaknesses are evident: It is written from a British viewpoint, and basically takes for granted a knowledge of South African history and geography most Americans do not possess (though they should). It also soft pedals the problems in Mandela's relationship with Winnie, though that is understandable. I have a feeling that not too many people could understand it. But it does a great job of making us see how the man was shaped and became what he is, and how he stands as a fearless, remarkable leader.