Volume 37, Number 14 · September 27, 1990
The Making of Mandela
By George M. Fredrickson
A History of South Africa
by Leonard Thompson
Yale University Press, 288 pp., $29.95
The Struggle: A History of the African National Congress
by Heidi Holland
George Braziller, 256 pp., $10.95 (paper)
South Africa Belongs to Us: A History of the ANC
by Francis Meli
Indiana University Press, 368 pp., $12.95 (paper)
Apartheid's Rebels: Inside South Africa's Hidden War
by Stephen M. Davis
Yale University Press, 238 pp., $9.95 (paper)
Higher Than Hope: The Authorized Biography of Nelson Mandela
by Fatima Meer
Harper and Row, 428 pp., $19.95
In Nelson Mandela's speech in Cape Town immediately after his release from prison in February was the key statement, 'I am a disciplined member of the ANC.' His constant use of the imperial 'we' in the public addresses and statements that he made during his recent US tour did not mean that he has an inflated sense of himself but that he was speaking for the African National Congress. Some American commentators and interviewers did not seem to understand this. Their questions and comments seemed to assume that he could have, or should have, deviated from well-established ANC positions on such matters as the use of force, sanctions, support of the PLO, and friendship for Fidel Castro and Muammar Qaddhafi.
Review, 8017 words
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