Customer Reviews

Rabble-Rouser for Peace: The Authorized Biography of Desmond Tutu

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The book starts in a very dramatic fashion with the description of a confrontation between Tutu and P.W. Botha. The vividly-written drama of the meeting has a certain sense of urgency to it and immediately draws in the reader and keeps him/her enthralled throughout the book. Though a thick book, I finished it fast since I didn't want to put it down. That for me is a thumbs-up.

The author leads us through Tutu's life with ease and finesse as he describes Tutu's youth, his stay in England, his slow climb up the hierarchy in the clergy in South Africa despite resistance, his forays into the anti-Apartheid movement. He not only made the international community aware of Apartheid (`apart hate') but also lobbied with them for imposing sanctions on South Africa. The book climaxes with the freeing of Mandela and the holding of elections in mid-1990s.

Throughout this easy-to-read book, Allen slowly builds up a mosaic of Tutu as being strong willed, persistent, compassionate and with a sense of humour. The various layers of Tutu's personality are revealed to the reader through anecdotes and reminiscences of others.

The strength of this book also becomes one its only drawback. It is extremely well-researched but then there is so much happening all the time, so many characters both well-known and less known that the book, at certain pages, becomes a muddle of facts through which the reader has to plod through. However, that doesn't take away significantly from the quality of the book.

Journalist John Allen has given us both a highly readable, engaging biography of retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and of the remarkable story of South Africa's transition to true democracy. What emerges is a portrait of a complex man of God, who understands that faith that is not translated into action to advance justice is worthless. Tutu's so-called "African spirituality"--in which there are no false (Western) distinctions between the sacred and secular, the body and soul--holds great wisdom and the power to heal many of the world's deepest problems. This is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in modern history, world events, and the role of people of faith in shaping and altering the course of events in positive ways. The diminutive Tutu stands alongside the giants of our own, and any other, age.

My admiration for Desmond Tutu is unbounded. I've read his words, I've heard him speak, I've been inspired by his passion for the social gospel and Christian pacifism. He is indeed a prophet.

That's why I'm flabbergasted at how uninspired and uninspiring John Allen's biography is. The book is clearly well-researched; there are almost 40 pages of tiny-printed endnotes. Moreover, Archbishop Tutu clearly has approved the biography; it's "authorized." Finally, Mr. Allen is a well-respected South African journalist.

But, alas, the book is one of the most boring reads I've ever struggled through. Partly this is because Mr. Allen spends a great deal of time going over the minutiae of South African parliamentary politics during Tutu's lifetime--to such an extent, in fact, that it's easy for the reader to lose sight of the fact that the book is actually a biography of Tutu. All this political detail may be of great interest to South Africans, but is much less so to outsiders.

But the tediousness of the book is partly because Mr. Allen's prose is just leaden. A typical example (p. 316): "In February, before the Anglican bishops met, the World Council of Churches' (WCC) Program to Combat Racism, headed by Barney Pityana, had held a consultation in Harare, Zimbabwe, and called for sanctions to be intensified. The week after the bishops' meeting in Soweto, Pityana was in London, where he heard Tutu explain on BBC radio the synod's decisions. Back at his office at the WCC in Geneva, he wrote to Tutu about 'how disappointing these positions were to us.'" After a few hundred pages pages of such prose, one begins to lose focus and interest.

I suspect that the encomiums for the book from the likes of Jimmy Carter, James Forbes, and Thomas Cahill are motivated more by admiration for the subject than for the actual biography. A much more readable (although not as thorough) treatment is Stephen Gish's biography. But much better are Rev. Tutu's own works. Start with God Has a Dream and No Future Without Forgiveness.

An excellent biography. I will echo another review that this book is highly readable. I wish I would have been tuned into the events in South Africa as a teen (or that my Social Studies teachers would have been tuned in) in the 1980s. This book helped to inform me of broad events in South Africa as well as give me an honest picture of Desmond Tutu. It is incredible how Tutu's theology informs his actions. He understands God in such a way that he could not sit safely on the sidelines. The book not only informs, but inspires. From a historians perspective, the use of primary sources throughout the book is clear. Well researched, well written! I highly recommend this book.

Having lived in South Africa for 36 years (1954-1990), I found that there were (not surprisingly), two sides to Desmond Tutu. My namesake John Allen has given the mainly positive aspects of the man, while my own book, 'Apartheid South Africa: An Insider's Overview of the Origin and Effects of Separate Development', gives the other. For instance, the Archbishop was accused by South African President Thabo Mbeki of being a liar and a charlatan, while President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, in his better days, called Tutu 'an angry, evil and embittered little bishop'.
I have listed much more about Mr Tutu in Apartheid South Africa, but coming from such well-informed people, statements like these should be enough to get readers thinking.

John Allen