Customer Reviews

Mandela: A Critical Life

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I had read Nelson Mandela's autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom" some time ago. I was hoping to find an objective and complimentary third party analysis of his extraordinary story. I am happy to say that Tom Lodge's book provided me exactly with what I was looking for. Lodge has authored a persuasive and unbiased examination of the public and private life of one of 20th century's greatest men.

The book provides a fascinating view on the crafting of the Mandela icon by himself and those around him. It is also interesting to understand the details that Mandela has consciously chosen not to include in his autobiography, such as, for example, some of the more humiliating treatments inflicted on him by South African prison guards.

Considering the book's relatively short length, Lodge's assessment of the important events underlying Mandela's life is, in many cases, remarkably extensive, often considering the view of multiple sources from varying stand points. That being said, Mandela's political development, especially in the period of time prior to his long term imprisonment, is multifaceted and involves a large number of people and organizations. As a result, readers for whom this is an introduction to Mandela's story might be better off starting with his autobiography, "Long Walk to Freedom", and reading Lodge's work as an excellent second book on this subject.

In just a little over 200 pages, "Mandela: A Critical Life" tells the story of how Nelson Mandela rose to the top of the African National Congress and emerged as an icon in South African politics. The author taught political science at Wits University, has good contacts in the ANC, and is an expert on black politics in South Africa. His book is a masterpiece of insight and compression. That said, it is not for beginners looking for straightforward biography. The text follows Mandela's life and career chronologically, but the analysis/biography ratio is high, and readers without background knowledge of 20th century South African history would be quite lost.

Mandela, A critical life is a good biography of the man. It tells us the story of his life with enough detail to enable us to have an intelligent conversation about the subject with reasonably well informed people. I appreciated the author's ability to cover vast amounts of material without having to use huge amounts of words. It has been a few weeks since I finished the book and the main points are still with me, a good sign that the relevant material was covered well.

What is missing from the narrative are deeper dives in certain portions of Mandela's persona looking for more insights into the man; it is easily understood that much of Mandela was molded by his patrician upbringing and his flair for the British way of life. Is this all? I don't think so. There must be deeper forces that drove Mandela to choose armed rebellion; once the choice for armed rebellion was made the author fails to make a case as to why Mandela chose to risk a life in prison instead that of a freedom fighter? After all, Castro has finished demonstrating the possibilities. We all know there were significantly differences between Cuba and South Africa and that a man of Mandela's caliber and experience would have understood it? On the other hand, was Mandela's choice made due his experience, statesmanship, a lack of courage, or some other reason?