To prepare for an upcoming trip to South Africa, I wanted to familiarize myself with the history of the region. The page count was daunting, but surprisingly, it was a quick read and kept my interest. I don't have much interest in reading about politics, but I thought this book was a great introduction to South Africa's recent history. I admire Nelson Mandela even more after reading his story- it was easy to relate to him although his background is so different from my own. A fascinating book, and I highly recommend it to anyone eager to learn more about South Africa and Nelson Mandela's incredible journey.

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I found out about this book by watching Judith Keppel's run on Who Want's to be a millionaire? I liked how the book included a map of Southern Africa and I didn't need to use a dictionary to look up the places Nelson Mandela was talking about. I liked learning about contemporary South African history since I never studied it in my history classes. I only heard apartheid and Nelson Mandela mentioned before but never studied them. It was good to study both indepth in the book and finding what happens to Mandela in the end. I loved the ending. It was one of the few political books i've read to have a great ending.

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Reading this book puts you in the presence of greatness. Mandela was a man who had extraordinary abilities and bold dreams. He fought a principled and strategic fight, suffered its consequences and emerged not only victorious but with his modesty, empathy and generosity of spirit intact. His autobiography is indeed long, and a bit of a slog in the middle, but the ending is so uplifting it brought me to tears.

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"Should be read by every person alive." ~Boston Sunday Globe

I agree!

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