Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela  (2)
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
A former South Africa bureau chief of the Washington Post, Frankel writes with depth and style about a group of mostly Jewish, mostly Communist, activists who, in the early 1960s, allied themselves with black activists seeking an end to apartheid. Rivonia was the farm outside Johannesburg where these radicals and their comrades were captured in a 1963 raid. The most compelling figures are Rusty and Hilda Bernstein; Rusty penned the African National Congress's inspirational Freedom Charter. Others in the book include Ruth First, journalist and wife of ANC and Communist Party leader Joe Slovo (the film A World Apart was based on her life), and Bram Fischer, a lawyer and Afrikaner rebel whose life inspired Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter. Frankel's kaleidoscopic style sometimes slows things down, and he could have done more to explore the group's reflections on the new South Africa they helped build. But Frankel constructs a dramatic narrative, combining interviews with his subjects (also some police and a Jewish prosecutor) with existing memoirs, histories and other accounts. The story is propelled by his own cogent assessments, by his deep respect for these activists and by his ruminations on the extraordinarily charged moral choices these people made and what their decisions cost them (in any number of ways, including family relationships, imprisonment and exile). Hilda Bernstein's observation rings powerfully: "The meaning of life is not a fact to be discovered, but a choice you make about the way you live."
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This is a well-researched and nicely written account of the small circle of left-wing radicals who immersed themselves in the South African anti-apartheid movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Frankel, a former South Africa bureau chief for the Washington Post, was also the winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. He writes with insight and assurance about the events that propelled talented individuals such as Ruth First, Joseph Slovo, Hilda and Rusty Bernstein, Harold and AnnMarie Wolpe, and Nelson Mandela to organize an underground campaign of sabotage against the apartheid regime. In 1963, the South African police raided their secret Communist Party headquarters in the town of Rivonia, which marked a key turning point in the development of anti-apartheid politics. Of this generation of activists, Frankel says "They had taken a risk that others...would not take, had eschewed comfort and thrown away security when others chose to go along and reap the benefits of silence and moral compliance." This is a useful addition to the literature on postwar South Africa and is recommended for larger public and academic libraries.AKent Worcester, Marymount Manhattan Coll., New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
A former South Africa bureau chief of the Washington Post, Frankel writes with depth and style about a group of mostly Jewish, mostly Communist, activists who, in the early 1960s, allied themselves with black activists seeking an end to apartheid. Rivonia was the farm outside Johannesburg where these radicals and their comrades were captured in a 1963 raid. The most compelling figures are Rusty and Hilda Bernstein; Rusty penned the African National Congress's inspirational Freedom Charter. Others in the book include Ruth First, journalist and wife of ANC and Communist Party leader Joe Slovo (the film A World Apart was based on her life), and Bram Fischer, a lawyer and Afrikaner rebel whose life inspired Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter. Frankel's kaleidoscopic style sometimes slows things down, and he could have done more to explore the group's reflections on the new South Africa they helped build. But Frankel constructs a dramatic narrative, combining interviews with his subjects (also some police and a Jewish prosecutor) with existing memoirs, histories and other accounts. The story is propelled by his own cogent assessments, by his deep respect for these activists and by his ruminations on the extraordinarily charged moral choices these people made and what their decisions cost them (in any number of ways, including family relationships, imprisonment and exile). Hilda Bernstein's observation rings powerfully: "The meaning of life is not a fact to be discovered, but a choice you make about the way you live."
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This is a well-researched and nicely written account of the small circle of left-wing radicals who immersed themselves in the South African anti-apartheid movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Frankel, a former South Africa bureau chief for the Washington Post, was also the winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. He writes with insight and assurance about the events that propelled talented individuals such as Ruth First, Joseph Slovo, Hilda and Rusty Bernstein, Harold and AnnMarie Wolpe, and Nelson Mandela to organize an underground campaign of sabotage against the apartheid regime. In 1963, the South African police raided their secret Communist Party headquarters in the town of Rivonia, which marked a key turning point in the development of anti-apartheid politics. Of this generation of activists, Frankel says "They had taken a risk that others...would not take, had eschewed comfort and thrown away security when others chose to go along and reap the benefits of silence and moral compliance." This is a useful addition to the literature on postwar South Africa and is recommended for larger public and academic libraries.AKent Worcester, Marymount Manhattan Coll., New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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- The Liberal Model and Africa: Elites Against Democracy by Kenneth Good in Back Matter