Nelson Mandela Popular Books

Nelson Mandela Biography & Facts

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( man-DEH-lə; Xhosa: [xolíɬaɬa mandɛ̂ːla]; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, politician, and statesman who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. A Xhosa, Mandela was born into the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944. After the National Party's white-only government established apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, Mandela and the ANC committed themselves to its overthrow. He was appointed president of the ANC's Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People. He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party (SACP). Although initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant uMkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 and led a sabotage campaign against the government. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1962, and, following the Rivonia Trial, was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the state. Mandela served 27 years in prison, split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison. Amid growing domestic and international pressure and fears of racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990. Mandela and de Klerk led efforts to negotiate an end to apartheid, which resulted in the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory and became president. Leading a broad coalition government which promulgated a new constitution, Mandela emphasised reconciliation between the country's racial groups and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses. Economically, his administration retained its predecessor's liberal framework despite his own socialist beliefs, also introducing measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty and expand healthcare services. Internationally, Mandela acted as mediator in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial and served as secretary-general of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999. He declined a second presidential term and was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. Mandela became an elder statesman and focused on combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the charitable Nelson Mandela Foundation. Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his life. Although critics on the right denounced him as a communist terrorist and those on the far left deemed him too eager to negotiate and reconcile with apartheid's supporters, he gained international acclaim for his activism. Globally regarded as an icon of democracy and social justice, he received more than 250 honours, including the Nobel Peace Prize. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is often referred to by his Thembu clan name, Madiba, and described as the "Father of the Nation". Early life Childhood: 1918–1934 Mandela was born on 18 July 1918 in the village of Mvezo in Umtata, then part of South Africa's Cape Province. Given the forename Rolihlahla, a Xhosa term colloquially meaning "troublemaker", in later years he became known by his clan name, Madiba. His patrilineal great-grandfather, Ngubengcuka, was ruler of the Thembu Kingdom in the Transkeian Territories of South Africa's modern Eastern Cape province. One of Ngubengcuka's sons, named Mandela, was Nelson's grandfather and the source of his surname. Because Mandela was the king's child by a wife of the Ixhiba clan, a so-called "Left-Hand House", the descendants of his cadet branch of the royal family were morganatic, ineligible to inherit the throne but recognised as hereditary royal councillors.Nelson Mandela's father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa Mandela (1880–1928), was a local chief and councillor to the monarch; he was appointed to the position in 1915, after his predecessor was accused of corruption by a governing white magistrate. In 1926, Gadla was also sacked for corruption, but Nelson was told that his father had lost his job for standing up to the magistrate's unreasonable demands. A devotee of the god Qamata, Gadla was a polygamist with four wives, four sons and nine daughters, who lived in different villages. Nelson's mother was Gadla's third wife, Nosekeni Fanny, daughter of Nkedama of the Right Hand House and a member of the amaMpemvu clan of the Xhosa. Mandela later stated that his early life was dominated by traditional Xhosa custom and taboo. He grew up with two sisters in his mother's kraal in the village of Qunu, where he tended herds as a cattle-boy and spent much time outside with other boys. Both his parents were illiterate, but his mother, being a devout Christian, sent him to a local Methodist school when he was about seven. Baptised a Methodist, Mandela was given the English forename of "Nelson" by his teacher. When Mandela was about nine, his father came to stay at Qunu, where he died of an undiagnosed ailment that Mandela believed to be lung disease. Feeling "cut adrift", he later said that he inherited his father's "proud rebelliousness" and "stubborn sense of fairness".Mandela's mother took him to the "Great Place" palace at Mqhekezweni, where he was entrusted to the guardianship of the Thembu regent, Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo. Although he did not see his mother again for many years, Mandela felt that Jongintaba and his wife Noengland treated him as their own child, raising him alongside their children. As Mandela attended church services every Sunday with his guardians, Christianity became a significant part of his life. He attended a Methodist mission school located next to the palace, where he studied English, Xhosa, history and geography. He developed a love of African history, listening to the tales told by elderly visitors to the palace, and was influenced by the anti-imperialist rhetoric of a visiting chief, Joyi. Nevertheless, at the time he considered the European colonizers not as oppressors but as benefactors who had brought education and other benefits to southern Africa. Aged 16, he, Justice and several other boys travelled to Tyhalarha to undergo the ulwaluko circumcision ritual that symbolically marked their transition from boys to me.... Discover the Nelson Mandela popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Nelson Mandela books.

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  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara

    Enfant, Nelson Mandela adorait écouter les aînés raconter l’histoire de son peuple et la lutte de ses ancêtres contre la colonisation. Il était encore étudiant quand l’apartheid, u...

  • Conversations with Myself synopsis, comments

    Conversations with Myself

    Nelson Mandela

    Nelson Mandela is widely considered to be one of the most inspiring and iconic figures of our age. Now, after a lifetime of taking pen to paper to record thoughts and events, hards...

  • Notes to the Future synopsis, comments

    Notes to the Future

    Nelson Mandela

    From the heart and soul of visionary Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, a collection of his most uplifting, timehonored quotes that have inspired our world and offer a path f...

  • See No Stranger synopsis, comments

    See No Stranger

    Valarie Kaur

    An urgent manifesto and a dramatic memoir of awakening, this is the story of revolutionary love.Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize “In a world stricken with fear and tur...

  • Showing Up for Life synopsis, comments

    Showing Up for Life

    Bill Gates, Sr. & Mary Ann Mackin

    A heartfelt, deeply personal book that shines a bright light on the values and principles that Bill Gates Sr. has learned over a lifetime of “showing up”: lessons that he lear...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Beatrice Gormley

    Get a behindthescenes glimpse of what it takes to change the world in this comprehensive biography that tells the complete life story of internationally renowned peacemaker Nelson ...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Albrecht Hagemann

    Rowohlt EBook MonographieNelson Mandela ist weltweit zum Symbol geworden für unbeugsamen Widerstand gegen Rassismus und Willkürherrschaft, aber auch für Versöhnungsbereitschaft geg...

  • If You Want to Make God Laugh synopsis, comments

    If You Want to Make God Laugh

    Bianca Marais

    From the author of the beloved Hum If You Don't Know the Words comes a rich, unforgettable story of three unique women in postApartheid South Africa who are brought together in the...

  • Blue Rage, Black Redemption synopsis, comments

    Blue Rage, Black Redemption

    Stanley Tookie Williams

    A gripping tale of personal revolution by a man who went from Crips cofounder to Nobel Peace Prize nominee, author, and antigang activistWhen his L.A. neighborhood was threatened b...

  • The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela

    Nelson Mandela & Sahm Venter

    One of NPR's Great Reads of 2018 An unforgettable portrait of one of the most inspiring historical figures of the twentieth century, published on the centenary of his birth. Ar...

  • Long Walk to Freedom synopsis, comments

    Long Walk to Freedom

    Nelson Mandela

    "Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand history – and then go out and change it." –President Barack Obama   Nelson Mandela was one of the great moral and politi...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Sten Rylander

    Unik biografi som ger en levande bild av Mandela som människa och politiker! I sitt försvarstal vid Rivoniarättegången 1964 , som slutade med en livstidsdom och 27 år i fängelse, ...

  • The Fate of Africa synopsis, comments

    The Fate of Africa

    Martin Meredith

    The definitive story of African nations after they emerged from colonialism from Mugabe's doomed kleptocracy to Mandela's inspiring defeat of apartheid.The Fate of Africa has been...

  • To Reach the Clouds synopsis, comments

    To Reach the Clouds

    Philippe Petit

    An artist of the air recreates his sixyear plot to pull off an act of incomparable beauty and imaginationOne latesummer day, a feat of unimaginable audacity was perpetrated on the ...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Aran S. MacKinnon

    This reference guide covers all aspects of the life and works of Nelson Mandela. The extensive A to Z section includes several hundred entries. The bibliography provides a comprehe...

  • What We Lose synopsis, comments

    What We Lose

    Zinzi Clemmons

    A National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 HonoreeNBCC John Leonard First Book Prize FinalistAspen Words Literary Prize FinalistNamed a Best Book of the Year by Vogue, NPR, Elle, E...

  • Lincoln and the Fight for Peace synopsis, comments

    Lincoln and the Fight for Peace

    John Avlon

    A groundbreaking and “affecting and powerful” (The New York Times Book Review) history of Abraham Lincoln’s plan to secure a just and lasting peace after the Civil Wara vision that...

  • The Simple Guide To Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    The Simple Guide To Nelson Mandela

    Chris Scott

    Although a simple guide this book tries to share with you the struggles and triumphs of this great man. It covers the life of Nelson Mandela starting with an explanation of The Apa...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Jean-Joseph Atangana

    Cet ouvrage rassemble l'essentiel de l'hommage planétaire rendu à Nelson Mandela, à l'annonce de son décès, lors de ses funérailles, en décembre 2013, et audelà. Il s'agit là d'une...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    50Minutes

    Keen to learn but short on time? Get to grips with the life of Nelson Mandela in next to no time with this concise guide.50Minutes.com provides a clear and engaging analysis of Nel...

  • Character Is Destiny synopsis, comments

    Character Is Destiny

    John McCain & Mark Salter

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Senator John McCain tells the stories of celebrated historical figures and lesserknown heroes whose values exemplify the best of the human spirit.He illu...

  • Mandela synopsis, comments

    Mandela

    Anthony Sampson

    Nelson Mandela, who emerged from twentysix years of political imprisonment to lead South Africa out of apartheid and into democracy, is perhaps the world's most admired leader, a m...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    David Elliot Cohen

    The New York Times bestselling author celebrates Mandela’s liberation and his fight for freedom with this collection of rare and historic photographs.On February 11th, 1990, Nelson...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Jörg Achim Zoll

    Versöhnung statt Blutvergießen. Mandela prägte durch Weisheit und die Bereitschaft, dem Gegner die Hand hinzustrecken, das Schicksal Südafrikas. Ideal für alle, die Veränderungspro...

  • El largo camino hacia la libertad synopsis, comments

    El largo camino hacia la libertad

    Nelson Mandela

    La autobiografía de Nelson Mandela escrita de su puño y letra.La vida un hombre extraordinario, un héroe internacional, uno de los grandes líderes morales y políticos de nuestro ti...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Neera Chandhoke

    This book reflects on the life and politics of Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) and his efforts to broker peace and reconciliation in a deeply divided country. Through examples from apar...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Shari K. Latta

    This book was created with the hope that young children everywhere will learn about the legend of Nelson Mandela. His message of understanding and forgiveness is paramount to a pea...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Cath Senker

    This series will tell the amazing stories of inspiring people who have made a difference and changed the world, despite the odds stacked against them. They will detail the characte...

  • The Impossible Will Take a Little While synopsis, comments

    The Impossible Will Take a Little While

    Paul Rogat Loeb

    More relevant than ever, this seminal collection of essays encourages us to believe in the power of ordinary citizens to change the world In today's turbulent world it's hard not t...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara

    In this book from the critically acclaimed, multimillioncopy bestselling Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the incredible life of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first Blac...

  • The Car synopsis, comments

    The Car

    Bryan Appleyard

    A spirited, insightful exploration of our favorite machine and it's cultural impact on society over the past one hundred and fifty years.More than any other technology, cars have t...

  • Be Fearless synopsis, comments

    Be Fearless

    Jean Case

    Be Fearless is researchedbased call to action for those seeking to live extraordinary lives and bring about transformational change.LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER NATIONAL BESTSELLE...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Colin Bundy

    Nelson Mandela's place in history is secure: he was one of the best known prisoners in the world, the first president of postapartheid South Africa, and a global icon with a de...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara

    In this ebook from the critically acclaimed, multimillioncopy bestselling Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the incredible life of Nelson Mandela, South Africas first Blac...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Antonio Lozano

    Un biznieto de Nelson Mandela, que tenía trece años cuando este murió, es consciente de que ha crecido junto a un ser extraordinario, una fuente enorme de sabiduría, y vive con el ...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    50Minutos

    Este libro es una guía práctica y accesible para saber más sobre Nelson Mandela, que le aportará la información esencial y le permitirá ganar tiempo.En tan solo 50 minutos usted po...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Georg Bacher

    Die Lehren, die aus den Erfahrungen des größtenteils friedlichen Übergangs zur Demokratie in Südafrika gezogen werden können, sind zweifellos für alle anderen Staaten auf der Welt ...

  • Nelson Mandela synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela

    Javier Fariñas Martín

    Amplio recorrido biográfico de Nelson Mandela, uno de los hombres más importantes de nuestro tiempo. Este libro es un reconocimiento a un pueblo que luchó. Sin una Sudáfrica rebeld...

  • Nelson Mandela - The Authorised Comic Book synopsis, comments

    Nelson Mandela - The Authorised Comic Book

    Nelson Mandela Foundation

    This graphic novel follows the life of Nelson Mandela from his rural childhood to internationally recognized statesman. 200 pages of carefully researched material will give you a f...

  • Afropessimism synopsis, comments

    Afropessimism

    Frank B. Wilderson III

    “Wilderson’s thinking teaches us to believe in the miraculous even as we decry the brutalities out of which miracles emerge”Fred Moten Praised as “a trenchant, funny, and unsparing...