An authorized biography, bolstered by the author’s contemporaneous journalism, seeking to assess the political temperament and performance of Nelson Mandela. Prepossessing the demeanor of a tribal chieftain and educated by Wesleyans, Mandela’s prison years instilled discipline and broadened vision, the crucial step toward peaceful revolution and African statesmanship par excellence. Taking to Johannesburg in the 1950s, where he practiced law and politics making expert (if ‘vicious’) use of the Socratic method, Mandela discovered a cultural energy comparable to the Harlem renaissance of the 1920s. He was impulsive and of two minds, torn between multiracial communism and black nationalism. Mandela opposed the socialistic element of 1956’s Freedom Charter, but contemporaries thought that if he wasn’t a member of the South African Communist Party, it was ‘merely tactical’. Less enamored of nonviolence than Oliver Tambo or Walter Sisulu, he abandoned the approach after the Sharpeville riots failed to catalyze political change. Following his capture and trial, Robben Island isolated Mandela from daily tactics: the African National Congress inmates turned to collegial development of strategy while learning to master animosity toward the Afrikaners. Meanwhile, the author tends to jump ahead consistent with contemporary left-liberal views, blaming the CIA and Thatcher for opposing sanctions, being slow to reconcile to the ‘inevitable’ ascendancy of Mandela and the ANC (soon coming to power in 1987?!), and failing to anticipate the end of the Cold War (in 1978!). Sampson notably overlooks that the Cold War’s end made it safer for the Nationalist government to retrench. But the dynamics of Mandela’s negotiations with Botha and deKlerk read more reliably, particularly in the portrayal of his views on renouncing violence, as do his thoughts on opposing general amnesty in exchange for commencing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Mandela misapprehended the cost of the ANC’s historic alliance with the USSR, and was slow to grasp the prospect of nationalization as deterring Western investors. In office, modeling is mixed (i.e., antagonistic) cabinet on Clemenceau’s, he displayed a quiet dignity, his forgiveness establishing moral supremacy, in contrast (the author says) to aggressive black American politicians. A persistent themes is the tension between the demands on a politician (i.e., winning power, projecting ideology) and the vision of a statesman (long-term good of the community). The last word: ‘You don’t lead by position but by the strength of your ideas’ (p. 529).