Mandela: The Authorised Biography - Brossura

Sampson, Anthony

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0006388450 ISBN 13: 9780006388456

Casa editrice: HarperCollins, 2000

Riassunto

‘A magisterial, detailed and invaluable account of one of this century’s greatest figures ... it is hard to believe that a better biography will ever be written.’ Justin Cartwright, Sunday Telegraph

The life of Nelson Mandela, from the personal and the global perspective, is one of the epic stories of the twentieth century. It is also one of the most inspiring. Twenty years ago, Mandela was an almost forgotten figure languishing in jail on Robben Island; today, as he leaves office as President of South Africa, he is one of the most widely admired leaders on earth.

The book provides many new insights into Mandela’s story and sheds new light at every turn on the moral dilemmas and personal choices of both Mandela’s private and public life.

Anthony Sampson has known Mandela from the early 1950s, and conducted hundreds of interviews with colleagues, family and friends as well as prison warders and Afrikaner ex-cabinet ministers, and he is the first person to have examined prison archives in South Africa and diplomatic papers in Great Britain, the United States and South Africa. He was given unprecedented access to 27 years’ worth of unpublished correspondence from prison, as well as to other unpublished writings including Mandela’s original, suppressed, autobiography.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

In the late 1950s Anthony Sampson spent four years in Johannesburg editing the black magazine Drum, an experience which led to a lifelong fascination with South African politics. He was on the staff of the Observer in the 1960s, and since then has written a series of major bestselling books, all translated into over 15 languages. His Anatomy of Britain was a pioneering classic.

Dalla quarta di copertina:

Anthony Sampson, who has known Mandela since 1951, was given unprecedented access to his subject, including extensive conversations with him, and inspection of all his letters through 27 years in prison, his original unpublished jail autobiography and the official prison records. He has unearthed for the first time British and American diplomatic and intelligence reports on his political influence; and he has been able to interview hundreds of colleagues, friends and family – including Mandela's three wives – to provide candid insights into his domestic life. He thus provides a quite new picture of Mandela's private and public life, and the tragic tension between them.

'This will be the last word on Mandela for years to come; it also becomes the central text in all future discussion of the momentous and peaceful transfer of power from white to black in South Africa ... it will be hard to improve upon this crowning conclusion to Sampson's long career as a loving and expert chronicler of South Africa.'
J.D.F. JONES, 'Evening Standard'

'Measured, detailed without a moment of tedium, incisive in its perceptions and, at times, profoundly moving.'
RONALD SEGAL, 'Observer'

’Warmly to be welcomed, not least because it is more substantial and revealing than Mandela's bestselling autobiography ... This biography is a great leap forward in our understanding of a man who is both enigmatic and private...Anthony Sampson has carried out his difficult commission with skill and sensitivity.'
DENIS JUDD, 'Independent'

'A magisterial, detailed and invaluable account of one of this century's greatest figures ... it is hard to believe that a better biography will ever be written.'
JUSTIN CARTWRIGHT, 'Sunday Telegraph'

Su questa edizione

• Editore: HarperCollins
• Data di pubblicazione: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0006388450
• ISBN 13: 9780006388456
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 704