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Young Mandela: The Revolutionary Years
Nelson Mandela is well-known throughout the world as a heroic leader who symbolizes freedom and moral authority. He is fixed in the public mind as the world's elder statesman -- the gray-haired man with a kindly smile who spent 27 years in prison before becoming the first black president in South Africa.
But Nelson Mandela was not always elderly or benign. And, in Young Mandela , award-winning journalist and author David James Smith takes us deep into the heart of racist South Africa to paint a portrait of the Mandela that many have the committed revolutionary who left his family behind to live on the run, adopting false names and disguises and organizing the first strikes to overthrow the apartheid state. Young Mandela lifts the curtain on an icon's first steps to greatness.
But Nelson Mandela was not always elderly or benign. And, in Young Mandela , award-winning journalist and author David James Smith takes us deep into the heart of racist South Africa to paint a portrait of the Mandela that many have the committed revolutionary who left his family behind to live on the run, adopting false names and disguises and organizing the first strikes to overthrow the apartheid state. Young Mandela lifts the curtain on an icon's first steps to greatness.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published February 5, 2010
About the author
David James Smith
26 books25 followersDavid James Smith is the author of six acclaimed non-fiction books and is an award-wining journalist for The Sunday Times Magazine of London. His latest book LET US PREY - A TRUE STORY OF MURDER AND DECEPTION is an Audible Original, available exclusively on Audible read by the author. It is an account of the Maids Moreton case. His first book, THE SLEEP OF REASON - THE JAMES BULGER CASE is in a new edition from Faber (2017) and remains the definitive account of the 1993 murder of a child by two ten year old boys. David has a close interest in criminal justice and served five years (2013-2018) as a Commissioner at The Criminal Cases Review Commission, appointed by HM The Queen to oversee investigations into miscarriages of justice. He was a local newspaper reporter and wrote for the monthly magazine Esquire before joining The Sunday Times Magazine, for whom he travelled around the world writing cover stories, investigative articles, reportage and profiles. It was an article for the Magazine that led to his second book, ALL ABOUT JILL: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JILL DANDO, which was published by Little Brown in 2002. Barry George was convicted and later acquitted of the infamous 1999 shooting of the television presenter on the doorstep of her London home. SUPPER WITH THE CRIPPENS, about the notorious Edwardian crime was published by Orion in 2005 and is currently in development as a drama series for television. ONE MORNING IN SARAJEVO made a gripping non-fiction thriller out of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in June, 1914: it was published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson in 2008. YOUNG MANDELA is the story of the early life of the iconic South African activist and leader who died in 2013. The biography was published in 2010 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK and Little Brown in the US. David’s research involved interviews with most of Mandela’s close family and comrades, including Winnie Madikezela-Mandela, and culminated in a meeting with Nelson Mandela himself.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
November 13, 2010
The story of Nelson Mandela as a young man is fascinating. Most of us have a vision of him later in his life, after finally being released from prison, after becoming president of South Africa. This book is the story of his younger life, his burgeoning political life, his change from a non-violent approach to militancy. The book ends around the time he was sentenced to life imprisonment. It was interesting to read about the different factions, about the role of communism in the uprisings, and racism on both sides of the fence, about political infighting. As far as personal information about Mandela, I don't know that I would have liked him very much if I had been part of his family. He withheld so much from them, and could, it seems, be quite emotionally distant and even cruel. There was a short reference to a criminal act by his wife Winnie, and I would have liked to know more about that.
Although I am very glad I read this book, I didn't love the writing style. For my tastes, it was dry in places. The time line occasionally jumped around and I sometimes had trouble understanding what the author was writing. While I enjoyed the writing in parts, other parts seemed choppy and confusing. To me, it was an uneven effort. Of course, this could reflect a deficiency of the reader rather than the writer.
I have on my bookshelf Nelson Mandela's Conversations with Myself, not yet read, and it will be interesting to compare that book with this one. I was given an ARC of this book by the publisher through the Goodreads giveaway program. The ARC had quite a few typographical errors that I trust have been corrected in the published edition. It also had some lovely photographs, and I very much appreciated those.
Although I am very glad I read this book, I didn't love the writing style. For my tastes, it was dry in places. The time line occasionally jumped around and I sometimes had trouble understanding what the author was writing. While I enjoyed the writing in parts, other parts seemed choppy and confusing. To me, it was an uneven effort. Of course, this could reflect a deficiency of the reader rather than the writer.
I have on my bookshelf Nelson Mandela's Conversations with Myself, not yet read, and it will be interesting to compare that book with this one. I was given an ARC of this book by the publisher through the Goodreads giveaway program. The ARC had quite a few typographical errors that I trust have been corrected in the published edition. It also had some lovely photographs, and I very much appreciated those.
September 4, 2011
The details were amazing and to have the book laid out in such a way as to have all the days leading up to his fateful arrest. When I concluded this book I thought my opening remark for this review would be "Every saint has a past and every sinner a future", well I've saved it for this moment. I first became aware of the name Mandela and only a fraction of the man in 1994, I was very young when the elections happened. As I grew older he already became a living legend. Feelings of the man for everyone is mixed. How to separate man from legend, legend from myth, man from hero even. It's not an easy task, fought with peril, to be concise, unbiased, aloof from your subject almost. With a man like Mandela is that possible? Even now there are people who will not say the full details of events and happenings of what occurred in the past no matter how many ghosts, there is always someone left that needs to be spared. However tricky the subject I think David James Smith did as fair and best job as he could with this book.
September 18, 2026
Ultimately, David James Smith delivers nominally on what the title promises: a readable, engaging chronicle of Mandela’s early life, personal entanglements, and underground militancy leading up to the watershed Rivonia Trial of 1964. It reads well, as good biography often does. But where it falls frustratingly short is where a study of a revolutionary matters most: the actual political analysis. Smith gives us the stages of Mandela’s radicalization without ever fully explaining what drove that evolution.
The cost of that analytical void hits you hardest on page 363. When Mandela finally rises in the dock to declare that a non-racial democracy is an ideal for which he is "prepared to die," the discerning reader is left doing all the heavy lifting alone. You find yourself mentally retracing the scattered accounts of his tactical shifts, his evolving relationship with communism, and his changing stance on race relations, trying to understand how exactly he arrived at that conviction. Smith simply didn't connect those dots for us, outside of a few superficial summary observations tossed out here and there.
About a quarter of the way through, you begin to suspect that Smith had another motivation in writing the book altogether: not merely tracing Mandela’s development, but also recovering the lives and contributions of the white and Jewish comrades who played significant roles in his political journey. It’s a righteous and necessary story, no doubt. You come away intellectually richer learning about figures like Bram Fischer, Cecil Williams, Rusty Bernstein, Ruth First, and Joe Slovo. But because Smith never makes this dual focus clear and upfront, it becomes a regrettably clumsy obstacle in the narrative, one that could easily have been avoided. Too many details don't directly feed back into Mandela’s political evolution; instead, they detour into illuminating these associates in their own right, distracting from the central figure just as his story is heating up.
This is where the book’s unfortunate significant weakness becomes most apparent, particularly in how Smith handles Mandela’s political maturation. Smith gives us all the landmark political events in that development. We see Walter Sisulu take the younger Mandela under his wing, introduce him to the ANC, and open him up to that wider Johannesburg political network, including his early contacts with communists and other activists outside the narrower African nationalist circle. We then follow the growing ideological and racial clashes within the ANC, particularly over whether the African struggle should remain exclusively Africanist or embrace cooperation with white, Indian and Coloured comrades. Those divisions eventually culminate in Robert Sobukwe and the Africanist faction breaking away to form the PAC. Then comes Sharpeville in 1960, after which Mandela increasingly concludes that non-violent resistance alone is no longer sufficient, eventually helping lead to the creation of Umkhonto we Sizwe.
Yet, throughout all of this, Smith simply drops these massive historical events onto the page and expects the reader to do the heavy lifting of figuring out how they actually forged Mandela’s worldview. He gives us the facts, but rarely the interior life. For instance, he doesn't really explain how Mandela’s upbringing made it possible for him to navigate those fierce racial debates, why he chose the multi-racial path alongside the likes of Ahmed Kathrada, Joe Slovo, and Bram Fischer rather than taking the hardline Africanist route.
To see what is missing here, you only have to contrast Smith with Jonathan Hansen’s "Young Castro." In that book, Hansen clearly demonstrates how Fidel’s upbringing, the financial security provided by his father Ángel paired with the fierce, unconditional social backing from his mother, breathed an unshakeable, almost reckless confidence into him. You watch that self-belief take root at Belén and blossom into raw political ambition at the University of Havana; the psychological line from childhood to the Moncada Barracks is crystal clear.
With Smith, we get none of that depth. He tells us that Mandela’s father died, that he was placed under the guardianship of the regent Jongintaba, and that he went to Fort Hare alongside the regent’s son, Justice. But all Smith really draws from this formative period is that Mandela liked to dress sharp, look dapper, and chased women. None of these surface-level anecdotes help us understand the political mind taking shape. In fact, Smith ends up writing Mandela as almost pre-packaged: he always says the right thing, avoids tribalism, dodges racism, and lands neatly on the right side of history. But Mandela was a flesh-and-blood man, not a prophet, right? If a biographer doesn't show the wrestling, the mistakes, and the awkward learning curve, then the transformation doesn't feel real. Readers are already aware of the legend of Madiba; we came here to understand how he began to become that man.
The same struggle extends to how Smith treats even Mandela’s personal flaws. The book devotes plenty of ink to his womanizing and his affairs, including his relationship with his secretary, Ruth Mompati. But because Smith fails to locate these behaviors within Mandela’s psychology or broader personality, it ends up reading more like township gossip than serious biographical inquiry. Contrast that with Jon Lee Anderson’s biography of Che Guevara, where Che’s early wanderings and impulses are framed through youthful restlessness and ideological drive, or Tad Szulc’s study of Castro, where Fidel’s romantic pursuits mirror his larger-than-life, all-consuming ego.
You see this done brilliantly in Alexander Pantsov’s biography of Deng Xiaoping, "Deng Xiaoping: A Revolutionary Life." Readers unfamiliar with Deng might be startled by how he could cold-bloodedly order the crackdown at Tiananmen Square. But Pantsov helps you understand the psychological architecture of the man: Deng was purged three separate times and never once broke faith with the CCP. He had his own son permanently crippled by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, and he watched the immense work he did resurrecting the Chinese economy after the Great Leap Forward wiped out overnight when he was denounced and banished. Yet he never wavered in his loyalty to the Party. Pantsov shows that to Deng, it was never personal; it was always about the big picture and the absolute survival of the communist project. Crushing the protests at Tiananmen was, in Deng's mind, an unsparing, rationalized necessity to preserve that collective mission. That is how a great biographer links a leader’s hardened past to their most controversial actions. With Smith, the mistresses and flaws are just listed.
Nor does an author always have to rely on childhood trauma to make sense of a protagonist; sharp situational analysis of a leader’s structural dilemmas can do the exact same thing. Take the astute dynamic laid out by Howard W. French in "The Second Emancipation." In the chapter unpacking the Volta River Project, French draws a masterclass line showing why Nkrumah was so agonizingly limited in how far he could go to rescue his political protégé, Patrice Lumumba. Nkrumah was walking a terrifying diplomatic tightrope: Ghana desperately needed financing from the United States and Britain for the Akosombo Dam, and Western powers were already gripped by Cold War paranoia, painting Lumumba as a communist pawn. For Nkrumah to intervene more forcefully would have branded him by association, completely torpedoing the delicate negotiations for the dam that was supposed to be the industrial backbone of Ghana’s independence. Painfully, Nkrumah had to prioritize Akosombo over Lumumba. That is textured, situational analysis. It explains the real, tragic political calculations leaders are forced to make. Yet Smith rarely gives us that kind of depth when examining Mandela’s own strategic choices and ideological cross-pressures.
Where I will give Smith credit, however, is in showing the brutal domestic cost of Mandela’s political commitment. Smith makes it painfully clear that to Mandela, the ANC came first, second, and third; family was a distant afterthought, and he expected everyone around him to accept that hierarchy. It brought to mind a striking passage in the political activist Andrée Blouin’s autobiography, where she harshly criticized Lumumba for turning back across the river to rescue his wife after he had crossed away from Mobutu's men, arguing that he had betrayed the broader African struggle by placing personal sentiment above the historic mission.
Mandela then here in the book as Smith argued, buttresses that cold, unsparing standard Blouin would've extolled. He was the kind of man who could quietly pack his bags, vanish into the underground to evade the apartheid state, and not even bother giving his wife Winnie a heads-up. For Mandela, individual sentiment had to be totally subordinated to the collective fight for liberation, and Smith to his credit, captures that unflinching detachment well.
All to say, once again and finally, Smith certainly dug up plenty of rich material from the people who knew the young militant Mandela, but he just couldn't, in my personal opinion and analysis, bridge that gap between the restless underground organizer and the formidable political figure who eventually stood opposite Percy Yutar in the dock at Rivonia. It’s an engaging read, of course, one that easily answers some curious questions and fills in some gaps regarding Mandela’s early life and politicization. But for a book promising to unpack the revolutionary years of the icon, it leaves the core mystery of the man largely untouched, unless the reader is prepared to do the heavy intellectual lifting Smith himself left undone. Solid three stars nonetheless.
The cost of that analytical void hits you hardest on page 363. When Mandela finally rises in the dock to declare that a non-racial democracy is an ideal for which he is "prepared to die," the discerning reader is left doing all the heavy lifting alone. You find yourself mentally retracing the scattered accounts of his tactical shifts, his evolving relationship with communism, and his changing stance on race relations, trying to understand how exactly he arrived at that conviction. Smith simply didn't connect those dots for us, outside of a few superficial summary observations tossed out here and there.
About a quarter of the way through, you begin to suspect that Smith had another motivation in writing the book altogether: not merely tracing Mandela’s development, but also recovering the lives and contributions of the white and Jewish comrades who played significant roles in his political journey. It’s a righteous and necessary story, no doubt. You come away intellectually richer learning about figures like Bram Fischer, Cecil Williams, Rusty Bernstein, Ruth First, and Joe Slovo. But because Smith never makes this dual focus clear and upfront, it becomes a regrettably clumsy obstacle in the narrative, one that could easily have been avoided. Too many details don't directly feed back into Mandela’s political evolution; instead, they detour into illuminating these associates in their own right, distracting from the central figure just as his story is heating up.
This is where the book’s unfortunate significant weakness becomes most apparent, particularly in how Smith handles Mandela’s political maturation. Smith gives us all the landmark political events in that development. We see Walter Sisulu take the younger Mandela under his wing, introduce him to the ANC, and open him up to that wider Johannesburg political network, including his early contacts with communists and other activists outside the narrower African nationalist circle. We then follow the growing ideological and racial clashes within the ANC, particularly over whether the African struggle should remain exclusively Africanist or embrace cooperation with white, Indian and Coloured comrades. Those divisions eventually culminate in Robert Sobukwe and the Africanist faction breaking away to form the PAC. Then comes Sharpeville in 1960, after which Mandela increasingly concludes that non-violent resistance alone is no longer sufficient, eventually helping lead to the creation of Umkhonto we Sizwe.
Yet, throughout all of this, Smith simply drops these massive historical events onto the page and expects the reader to do the heavy lifting of figuring out how they actually forged Mandela’s worldview. He gives us the facts, but rarely the interior life. For instance, he doesn't really explain how Mandela’s upbringing made it possible for him to navigate those fierce racial debates, why he chose the multi-racial path alongside the likes of Ahmed Kathrada, Joe Slovo, and Bram Fischer rather than taking the hardline Africanist route.
To see what is missing here, you only have to contrast Smith with Jonathan Hansen’s "Young Castro." In that book, Hansen clearly demonstrates how Fidel’s upbringing, the financial security provided by his father Ángel paired with the fierce, unconditional social backing from his mother, breathed an unshakeable, almost reckless confidence into him. You watch that self-belief take root at Belén and blossom into raw political ambition at the University of Havana; the psychological line from childhood to the Moncada Barracks is crystal clear.
With Smith, we get none of that depth. He tells us that Mandela’s father died, that he was placed under the guardianship of the regent Jongintaba, and that he went to Fort Hare alongside the regent’s son, Justice. But all Smith really draws from this formative period is that Mandela liked to dress sharp, look dapper, and chased women. None of these surface-level anecdotes help us understand the political mind taking shape. In fact, Smith ends up writing Mandela as almost pre-packaged: he always says the right thing, avoids tribalism, dodges racism, and lands neatly on the right side of history. But Mandela was a flesh-and-blood man, not a prophet, right? If a biographer doesn't show the wrestling, the mistakes, and the awkward learning curve, then the transformation doesn't feel real. Readers are already aware of the legend of Madiba; we came here to understand how he began to become that man.
The same struggle extends to how Smith treats even Mandela’s personal flaws. The book devotes plenty of ink to his womanizing and his affairs, including his relationship with his secretary, Ruth Mompati. But because Smith fails to locate these behaviors within Mandela’s psychology or broader personality, it ends up reading more like township gossip than serious biographical inquiry. Contrast that with Jon Lee Anderson’s biography of Che Guevara, where Che’s early wanderings and impulses are framed through youthful restlessness and ideological drive, or Tad Szulc’s study of Castro, where Fidel’s romantic pursuits mirror his larger-than-life, all-consuming ego.
You see this done brilliantly in Alexander Pantsov’s biography of Deng Xiaoping, "Deng Xiaoping: A Revolutionary Life." Readers unfamiliar with Deng might be startled by how he could cold-bloodedly order the crackdown at Tiananmen Square. But Pantsov helps you understand the psychological architecture of the man: Deng was purged three separate times and never once broke faith with the CCP. He had his own son permanently crippled by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, and he watched the immense work he did resurrecting the Chinese economy after the Great Leap Forward wiped out overnight when he was denounced and banished. Yet he never wavered in his loyalty to the Party. Pantsov shows that to Deng, it was never personal; it was always about the big picture and the absolute survival of the communist project. Crushing the protests at Tiananmen was, in Deng's mind, an unsparing, rationalized necessity to preserve that collective mission. That is how a great biographer links a leader’s hardened past to their most controversial actions. With Smith, the mistresses and flaws are just listed.
Nor does an author always have to rely on childhood trauma to make sense of a protagonist; sharp situational analysis of a leader’s structural dilemmas can do the exact same thing. Take the astute dynamic laid out by Howard W. French in "The Second Emancipation." In the chapter unpacking the Volta River Project, French draws a masterclass line showing why Nkrumah was so agonizingly limited in how far he could go to rescue his political protégé, Patrice Lumumba. Nkrumah was walking a terrifying diplomatic tightrope: Ghana desperately needed financing from the United States and Britain for the Akosombo Dam, and Western powers were already gripped by Cold War paranoia, painting Lumumba as a communist pawn. For Nkrumah to intervene more forcefully would have branded him by association, completely torpedoing the delicate negotiations for the dam that was supposed to be the industrial backbone of Ghana’s independence. Painfully, Nkrumah had to prioritize Akosombo over Lumumba. That is textured, situational analysis. It explains the real, tragic political calculations leaders are forced to make. Yet Smith rarely gives us that kind of depth when examining Mandela’s own strategic choices and ideological cross-pressures.
Where I will give Smith credit, however, is in showing the brutal domestic cost of Mandela’s political commitment. Smith makes it painfully clear that to Mandela, the ANC came first, second, and third; family was a distant afterthought, and he expected everyone around him to accept that hierarchy. It brought to mind a striking passage in the political activist Andrée Blouin’s autobiography, where she harshly criticized Lumumba for turning back across the river to rescue his wife after he had crossed away from Mobutu's men, arguing that he had betrayed the broader African struggle by placing personal sentiment above the historic mission.
Mandela then here in the book as Smith argued, buttresses that cold, unsparing standard Blouin would've extolled. He was the kind of man who could quietly pack his bags, vanish into the underground to evade the apartheid state, and not even bother giving his wife Winnie a heads-up. For Mandela, individual sentiment had to be totally subordinated to the collective fight for liberation, and Smith to his credit, captures that unflinching detachment well.
All to say, once again and finally, Smith certainly dug up plenty of rich material from the people who knew the young militant Mandela, but he just couldn't, in my personal opinion and analysis, bridge that gap between the restless underground organizer and the formidable political figure who eventually stood opposite Percy Yutar in the dock at Rivonia. It’s an engaging read, of course, one that easily answers some curious questions and fills in some gaps regarding Mandela’s early life and politicization. But for a book promising to unpack the revolutionary years of the icon, it leaves the core mystery of the man largely untouched, unless the reader is prepared to do the heavy intellectual lifting Smith himself left undone. Solid three stars nonetheless.
June 22, 2011
Nelson Mandela is even more my hero after this warts-and-all biography. Not too many warts: a failed first marriage, some hanky-panky, lack of physical affection for his children and perhaps the bad decision to start a family while trying to free his country from, oh, white supremacy. If nothing else, read the first chapter—scenes from his trial—and you’ll get most of Mandela right there: dignified, eloquent, charismatic, decent, even Christ-like. The biography draws on new material and zooms in on picayune details only a historian can love. We follow Mandela as he joins the ANC, embraces white (mostly all Jewish!) and Indian comrades, pushing the ANC to radicalize. After non-violence leads to more violence by the apartheid state, he and his bumbling Communist comrades (never a Communist, but his Jewish allies were) start the ‘armed struggle’—bombs in post offices, amateur stuff. The bio ends as Mandela at 47 starts his 26 years in jail. How did evil apartheid endure all those decades?
August 8, 2023
This was an enlightening book about Nelson Mandela. Having read a couple of other books by him, I had placed him on a pedestal. I’m better informed today. The diferent characters in his life, seemed quite confusing alongside the different African names which I found difficult for me to pronounce.
November 13, 2023
Made it halfway through this book. Interesting subject and incredibly detailed, definitely learned new things. But the minutiae got monotonous for me and decided to bail.
December 28, 2011
Nelson Mandela is no Steve Biko, as far as I'm concerned, but this book intrigued me because it claims to be a real-to-life portrayal of Mandela rather than a mythical depiction--I've never thought Mandela to be the great hero that everyone thinks he is. Besides, it was a Christmas gift.
If anyone has read my reviews before, which is unlikely, they'd know that I'm not one to talk about the actual content of the books, as any good review should. I'll simply say that anyone interested in South Africa, Mandela, or the personal life of political revolutionaries of any kind should find this book quite useful. Rather than detailing the course of events in Mandela's life, Smith jumps behind the scenes. The reader gets to see what his family thought and felt about Mandela throughout as well as Mandela's own emotional responses to events. Smith also tries to sift through public opinion and other facts that Mandela-lovers and ANC supporters generally either downplay or ignore.
My great frustration with this book has nothing to do with it. I continue to be frustrated that so much ink is spilled over Mandela and hardly anyone pays any attention to Steve Biko simply because Mandela's ANC "won." The ANC skillfully worked the political game to receive the attention and the praise. Thankfully Smith's telling shows all the sometimes trivial political battles involved in the struggle for democracy, that Mandela and the ANC and all other political organizations involved didn't, as is normally thought, only have the country's best interest at heart. The ANC, and others, generally argued against, many times with Mandela's approval, other organizations and movements simply because they were not the ANC. That's why I wish people like Biko received more attention precisely because he wasn't exactly political. Oh well.
I also had a problem with the enormous amount of typos in the book. Typos happen, even in the best of books with the best publishers, but it was ridiculous in this book. Since it is a relatively new book, I suggest that interested readers wait until a possible second edition is published.
Typos aside, I also took issue with some grammatical issues. That is probably only a personal issue, though.
I do wish, too, that Smith had more organizing principles for each chapter. For the most part the book follows chronology, but the latter half of some chapters take on a life of their own, expanding on or simply following up in an almost tangent on something that came up during the telling of the story. There's nothing wrong with that, but the chapters are only given numbers and no other indication of what dictated the organization. This is especially frustrating when Smith sometimes seems to repeat himself, giving the same information in a later chapter that he already provided in an earlier chapter.
Clearly I'm very technique-focused. I don't think that we can deny that style greatly affects reception of the content. But, I do think this book is, on the whole, very well done. Lots of interviews with Mandela's family and with his living colleagues, as well as lots of research, clearly informs the writing of this book. Reading the words of those that Smith interviewed is very fascinating all on its own and enough to recommend the book.
If anyone has read my reviews before, which is unlikely, they'd know that I'm not one to talk about the actual content of the books, as any good review should. I'll simply say that anyone interested in South Africa, Mandela, or the personal life of political revolutionaries of any kind should find this book quite useful. Rather than detailing the course of events in Mandela's life, Smith jumps behind the scenes. The reader gets to see what his family thought and felt about Mandela throughout as well as Mandela's own emotional responses to events. Smith also tries to sift through public opinion and other facts that Mandela-lovers and ANC supporters generally either downplay or ignore.
My great frustration with this book has nothing to do with it. I continue to be frustrated that so much ink is spilled over Mandela and hardly anyone pays any attention to Steve Biko simply because Mandela's ANC "won." The ANC skillfully worked the political game to receive the attention and the praise. Thankfully Smith's telling shows all the sometimes trivial political battles involved in the struggle for democracy, that Mandela and the ANC and all other political organizations involved didn't, as is normally thought, only have the country's best interest at heart. The ANC, and others, generally argued against, many times with Mandela's approval, other organizations and movements simply because they were not the ANC. That's why I wish people like Biko received more attention precisely because he wasn't exactly political. Oh well.
I also had a problem with the enormous amount of typos in the book. Typos happen, even in the best of books with the best publishers, but it was ridiculous in this book. Since it is a relatively new book, I suggest that interested readers wait until a possible second edition is published.
Typos aside, I also took issue with some grammatical issues. That is probably only a personal issue, though.
I do wish, too, that Smith had more organizing principles for each chapter. For the most part the book follows chronology, but the latter half of some chapters take on a life of their own, expanding on or simply following up in an almost tangent on something that came up during the telling of the story. There's nothing wrong with that, but the chapters are only given numbers and no other indication of what dictated the organization. This is especially frustrating when Smith sometimes seems to repeat himself, giving the same information in a later chapter that he already provided in an earlier chapter.
Clearly I'm very technique-focused. I don't think that we can deny that style greatly affects reception of the content. But, I do think this book is, on the whole, very well done. Lots of interviews with Mandela's family and with his living colleagues, as well as lots of research, clearly informs the writing of this book. Reading the words of those that Smith interviewed is very fascinating all on its own and enough to recommend the book.
November 2, 2010
I finished reading Young Mandela: The Revolutionary Years, by David James Smith, and I loved it, but there was so much information in this book including ALL of the people who worked along with Mr. Mandela that at times my head would start spinning while reading this. I learned so much about Nelson Mandela, beginning with his childhood and all through his revolutionary years, and I also learned a great deal about South Africa during the first half of the 20th Century (actually, up until around 1964.) In addition, Mandela had traveled around the African continent prior to his imprisonment, and I learned some fascinating things about some of the other African nations. Most importantly, I learned of the struggle and sacrifice of Mr. Mandela, and the importance of really believing in a cause (and, in this case, a very worthy cause -- the abolishment of apartheid in South Africa.) It's really an amazing and extremely inspiring story, which I would recommend to everyone.
It took me a long time to read this book, probably due to the fact that I'm not the fastest reader in the world, but also because David James Smith really fills up every one of the 362 (or so) pages with tons and tons of detailed information about Mandela's life prior to his arrest in 1962 which led to 27 years of imprisonment. It was fascinating to learn so much about Nelson Mandela, the man (as opposed to "the hero" or "the icon" or "the President.") I've learned quite a lot about his relationships with his first two wifes, Evelyn and Winnie, and his children from both marriages. It seems that his dedication to his cause and all of the work he did to abolish apartheid really took quite a toll on his family.
I have always known Nelson Mandela as a man who has accomplished more than would seem possible for one person to do, and he definitely is one of the most important people of all time, but it's nice to see his "human" side as well -- that he actually has flaws and faults.
David James Smith shares so many stories which inform the reader of exactly what apartheid really meant and really felt like for Africans during that time. I think it's so important for people who truly do not understand what discrimination or segregation feels like to read this book in order to get a better insight on what it would be like. This biography is so inspiring because so many people would have just said "OK, there is nothing we can do about this, so let's just accept things as they are," but Mandela and his many supporters refused to accept the horrible way that Africans were treated in their own country. (Let alone the fact that no human being should be treated differently than other human beings, whether in their own country or not.) Mandela and his supporters really put their lives on the line and stood up for what they believed in.
This book really meant so much to me, and I'm so happy to have had an opportunity to read about and learn so much about a truly amazing man, and to discover how "real" and "human" he is.
Thank you to Literanista and The Hachette Book Group, and thank you to Goodreads for choosing me as a First Reads winner of this very interesting and important book. I enjoyed it so much.
It took me a long time to read this book, probably due to the fact that I'm not the fastest reader in the world, but also because David James Smith really fills up every one of the 362 (or so) pages with tons and tons of detailed information about Mandela's life prior to his arrest in 1962 which led to 27 years of imprisonment. It was fascinating to learn so much about Nelson Mandela, the man (as opposed to "the hero" or "the icon" or "the President.") I've learned quite a lot about his relationships with his first two wifes, Evelyn and Winnie, and his children from both marriages. It seems that his dedication to his cause and all of the work he did to abolish apartheid really took quite a toll on his family.
I have always known Nelson Mandela as a man who has accomplished more than would seem possible for one person to do, and he definitely is one of the most important people of all time, but it's nice to see his "human" side as well -- that he actually has flaws and faults.
David James Smith shares so many stories which inform the reader of exactly what apartheid really meant and really felt like for Africans during that time. I think it's so important for people who truly do not understand what discrimination or segregation feels like to read this book in order to get a better insight on what it would be like. This biography is so inspiring because so many people would have just said "OK, there is nothing we can do about this, so let's just accept things as they are," but Mandela and his many supporters refused to accept the horrible way that Africans were treated in their own country. (Let alone the fact that no human being should be treated differently than other human beings, whether in their own country or not.) Mandela and his supporters really put their lives on the line and stood up for what they believed in.
This book really meant so much to me, and I'm so happy to have had an opportunity to read about and learn so much about a truly amazing man, and to discover how "real" and "human" he is.
Thank you to Literanista and The Hachette Book Group, and thank you to Goodreads for choosing me as a First Reads winner of this very interesting and important book. I enjoyed it so much.
February 16, 2011
I knew very little about Mandela and his struggle, thats why I listen to this audiobook. If I followed it correctly, Mandela did not fully embrace communism, but it was communist revolutionaries that he primarily worked with, they were influenced by Gandhi and tried non-violent civil disobedience, but eventually felt it was not working and thus decided to try a violent revolution, but their preparation and attempts were laughable. They were amateurs and poor, and it did not take long for them to get caught. Mandela was sentence for life, but after 20 something years the political scene changed and he was released and became president. Mandela, was unique among most of the Africans he worked with, for a majority were just as racist as the white, they just wanted to be the oppressors instead of being the oppressed. Mandela wanted equality. This book showed his messed up personal life, he was horrible to his wives and was a womanizer and most of those he worked with had very colored personal lives as well and yet high political ideals. Most sacrificed their families for the high cause.
You know, to me it does seem Mandela could have avoided 27 years of prison and near execution if we continued with the Gandhi method, instead of a decision in favor of guerrilla warfare. And one could argue the result would be the same, the apartheid would have still ended. So his choice for violence likely resulted in lots of unnecessary suffering for him and his family. now I think it was the same to Bonhoeffer and the others who tried to assassinate Hitler, it cost Bonhoeffer his life and it did not change anything, Hitler eventually reached his downfall anyways. I get the impression that activist see what they are doing is not bringing any change, so they then turn to more desperate means are great cost to themselves. While if they just continued what they were doing and were patient, all would be good in the end. I am sure its not that simple, but yeah, thats what comes to mind.
You know, to me it does seem Mandela could have avoided 27 years of prison and near execution if we continued with the Gandhi method, instead of a decision in favor of guerrilla warfare. And one could argue the result would be the same, the apartheid would have still ended. So his choice for violence likely resulted in lots of unnecessary suffering for him and his family. now I think it was the same to Bonhoeffer and the others who tried to assassinate Hitler, it cost Bonhoeffer his life and it did not change anything, Hitler eventually reached his downfall anyways. I get the impression that activist see what they are doing is not bringing any change, so they then turn to more desperate means are great cost to themselves. While if they just continued what they were doing and were patient, all would be good in the end. I am sure its not that simple, but yeah, thats what comes to mind.
November 26, 2024
.5 star subtracted because of the ridiculous Madiba impersonation by the narrator. Another .5 gone because of the circuitous, drawn out ending by the author.
I learned a lot. I appreciate that. The author obviously spent copious amounts of time poring over all of the historical information.
I learned a lot. I appreciate that. The author obviously spent copious amounts of time poring over all of the historical information.
June 9, 2014
This was the first of many good reads during my last stay on Moorea in 2013. Many of us are well aware of the achievements of Nelson Mandela as a seasoned activist and politician in pre- and post- South Africa. This book is a very detailed account of a young man finding his place in a society that would not accept him as an equal. The description of his transition from non-violence to a recognition that violence may be the last driver of change is a rich one. David James Smith captures nicely the principles that guided Nelson's moral and political development over time. While acknowledging his accomplishments later in life, he casts an objective eye on some of the lapses that Nelson engaged in that only illustrates how complex and human Nelson Mandela was. I left the book behind so that others could appreciate it, but one of these days I will acquire another copy and add it to my library of books that matter.
April 8, 2011
Like a lot of people in my generation I know Nelson Mandela solely as the legend, the peaceful elder statesman, the first black President of South Africa, but I know almost nothing of who his was before his release from decades in prison. David James Smith not only shows who this younger version of Mandela was, but he does so without leaving out anything, giving us a nuanced portrait of Mandela the man, not just Mandela the hero. Really the only problem about this book is that because it is so detailed, it's not great for a reader like me who knows almost nothing about the struggle against apartheid in South Africa before the 1980s. Otherwise, it's a great work that pulls together numerous interviews Mandela and those close to him to bring together a very comprehensive picture of Nelson Mandela's early life.
October 12, 2016
Nelson Mandela is well-known throughout the world as a heroic leader who symbolizes freedom and moral authority. He is fixed in the public mind as the world's elder statesman--the gray-haired man with a kindly smile who spent 27 years in prison before becoming the first black president in South Africa. But Nelson Mandela was not always elderly or benign. And, in YOUNG MANDELA, award-winning journalist and author David James Smith takes us deep into the heart of racist South Africa to paint a portrait of the Mandela that many have forgotten: the committed revolutionary who left his family behind to live on the run, adopting false names and disguises and organizing the first strikes to overthrow the apartheid state. YOUNG MANDELA lifts the curtain on an icon's first steps to greatness.
November 13, 2010
GR/First Reads win- Nov 2010- awaiting delivery
Received 11/29
Well, this took me 3 years to finally finish! (it was misplaced for a few of those years, but once I did start, I had a hard time finishing. The book jumped around a bit, making it confusing and it was hard to pick back up once I set it down. Additionally, there was a lot of information about other people that helped Mandela and the ANC so keeping those straight also was difficult.
I did get a good understanding of Mandela, to include his flaws, not just the hero everyone considers him to be. Wish there would have been a bit more info on Winnie and her part.
Received 11/29
Well, this took me 3 years to finally finish! (it was misplaced for a few of those years, but once I did start, I had a hard time finishing. The book jumped around a bit, making it confusing and it was hard to pick back up once I set it down. Additionally, there was a lot of information about other people that helped Mandela and the ANC so keeping those straight also was difficult.
I did get a good understanding of Mandela, to include his flaws, not just the hero everyone considers him to be. Wish there would have been a bit more info on Winnie and her part.
April 5, 2011
As other reviewers noted, this is a book of serious research and I perhaps needed an abbreviated version. Mandela is an extraordinary human both in the manner in which he freed himself to experience and learn and pursue beliefs into happenings. He sure learned from his mistakes and kept trying. I have been to the Apartheid Museum and places in & around Johannesburg including Soweto. That visit was a strong lesson in how conditions were for blacks during the era in this book. Every part of the book rings true. I would have liked more on his formative years to better understand how his passion grew.
July 19, 2012
An excellent introductory history to Nelson Mandela's life. I learned a great deal about apartheid and the fight against it. I’m very much looking forward to reading “Long Walk to Freedom” to compare narratives. Highly recommended. It is hard to imagine that such a thing ever happened in the world.
This book is neither muckraking nor hagiography. An honest attempt at a nuanced and de-mythologized understanding of Mandela’s life, times, and work.
This book is neither muckraking nor hagiography. An honest attempt at a nuanced and de-mythologized understanding of Mandela’s life, times, and work.
February 4, 2015
I learned a lot about Mandela, his family, South Africa, and the ANC. I thought the author spent too much time focused on "humanizing" Mandela (it seems like about 1/3 of the book is used to talk about what a bad father/husband he was), and not nearly enough time talking about the experiences and situations that shaped Mandela's view of the world.
Definitely worth a read, but I was left wanting a lot more.
Definitely worth a read, but I was left wanting a lot more.
January 21, 2011
I knew very little about Mandela's life - especially his early life as a revolutionary; so I found this informative. I guess I never realized how militant he was and how much he embraced violence during his struggle to free his people. And his family (wives and children) made great sacrifices as a result of Mandela's position. The book definitely showed the evils of apartheid.
March 9, 2012
David James Smith brought a legend to life by allowing us to see his humanity. Although we view Nelson Mandela in the leadership role, there were many involved in the struggle for freedom. Freedom, as an idea is greater than one person - it belongs to a global world.
For more check out:
http://ontheroadbookclub.com/2012/05/...
For more check out:
http://ontheroadbookclub.com/2012/05/...
October 20, 2012
Very disappointing as so repetitive with a lot of unnecessary detail. I felt that this has been badly edited. there were constant shifts in time, yet always ending up at the same 10 year time period, which made it feel that you were re-visiting the same information; rather than building on what had come before. I couldn't finish it.
March 10, 2013
This biography covers Nelson Mandela's early years up to his imprisonment in 1964. Smith's discussion of Mandela's private life seems to depend too much on suppositions and speculation. What is interesting to me is the ANC's move from non-violence to armed struggle and the close, working relationship between the ANC (African National Congress) and the South African Communist Party.
January 1, 2016
The writing style appears to be a bit jumpy and assuming some prior knowledge about South African history of the 1950's and 1960's. Without this knowledge I felt a little bit excluded from this book's target group. I also can't estimate the quality and originality of the research work done by the author.
May 4, 2016
I recently read Mandela's autobiography so I find this book to be a bit repetitive because David James smith quotes liberally from the autobiography. So far the only bit of new information was an interview from a sister in law that had very little to say. I'm going to step away from the book for a while, hopefully it will be better at detailing the "Black Pimpernel" days
partially-read
November 14, 2010This book is intimidating me. I skimmed through it and read a little bit, and it seems like a book for someone who is truly interested in Mandela - not someone who wants to read it casually for fun, like me.
January 3, 2011
profound, poignant, inspiring. I learned so much about Mandela and about South Africa.
February 22, 2011
The writing was weird but the story is worth knowing. It's so interesting to learn the good and the bad of someone's role models.
October 8, 2011
NON-FICTION
May 6, 2012
Not exactly readable, but gives a true, honest depiction of Mandela before the Rivonia trial, shedding light on his not-so-perfect side.
October 3, 2013
A very good book about the early years of Mandela's life. I haven't read much about Mandela but hope to do more in the future.
January 3, 2014
Recomendo, permite descobrir o homem que nos deu Mandela
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