TY - BOOK AU - Sampson, Anthony TI - Mandela : : The Authorized Biography / SN - 978-0679781783 U1 - 923.2 PY - 1999/// CY - New York : PB - Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., KW - Mandela, Nelson KW - Presidents KW - Biography KW - South Africa N1 - Includes bibliographical references and index; Map: Apartheid South Africa Prologue: The Last Hero Country Boy: 1918-1934 Mission Boy: 1934-1940 Big City: 1941-1945 Afrikaners vs. Africans: 1946-1949 Nationalists vs. Communists: 1950-1951 Defiance: 1952 Lawyer and Revolutionary: 1952-1954 The Meaning of Freedom: 1953-1956 Treason and Winnie: 1956-1957 Dazzling Contender: 1957-1959 The Revolution That Wasn't: 1960 Violence: 1961 Last Fling: 1962 Crime and Punishment: 1963-1964 Master of My Fate: 1964-1971 Steeled and Hardened: 1971-1976 Lady into Amazon: 1962-1976 The Shadowy Presence: 1964-1976 Black Consciousness: 1976-1978 Prison Charisma: 1976-1982 A Family Apart: 1977-1980 Prison Within a Prison: 1978-1982 Insurrection: 1982-1985 Ungovernability: 1986-1988 The Lost Leader: 1983-1988 "Something Horribly Wrong": 1987-1989 Prisoner vs. President: 1989-1990 Myth and Man Revolution to Cooperation Third Force Exit Winnie Negotiating Election Governing The Glorified Perch Forgiving Withdrawing Graca Mandela's World Mandela's Country Image and Reality N2 - Summary: The Life of Nelson Mandela is one of the most extraordinary epics of the twentieth century. An almost-forgotten prisoner on Robben Island twenty years ago, apparently doomed to a helpless existence as a victim of apartheid, he not only survived but almost single-handedly saved South Africa from potential chaos, to become one of the most widely admired leaders in the world. Mandela's myth is dazzling; in this biography Anthony Sampson penetrates it to show us the man himself. Mandela is filled with new insights and information. We see how prison, which he and his fellow inmates turned into a kind of unofficial university, gradually transformed Mandela from a headstrong activist into a reflective and consummately skilled statesman. We learn how British and American diplomats cold-shouldered him when support was desperately needed, and about the political infighting, sometimes vicious, that went on between anti-apartheid factions. Particularly fascinating is Sampson's narrative of the incredible negotiations leading to Mandela's release from prison and the eventual collapse of the white regime, when his colleagues feared that he was selling out to the government. At every turn, this book sheds fresh light on the moral dilemmas that Mandela was forced to face again and again in his personal and public lives. In the struggle for freedom for South African blacks, he paid a tragic price, becoming alienated from his wife and remote from his children. Yet he famously retained his humanity, and while Sampson does not conceal Mandela's failings - his stubbornness, his fixed loyalties, his princely manners and detachment - the man who emerges is authentically heroic ER -