Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela's place in history is secure: he was one of the best known prisoners in the world even before his election as the first president of post-apartheid South Africa; secondly, he became a global icon, an elder statesman, with a degree of moral authority matched by very few. Coming to terms with a dizzying sequence of roles, this biography explores Mandela's various identities—dashing young urbanite, charismatic nationalist politician, underground military commander and Black Pimpernel, tried, convicted, and a political prisoner for 27 years; on his release president of a democratic South Africa—and assesses these independently of his iconic, nigh-mythic status.

Colin Bundy is a historian: now retired, his academic career has been spent in the UK and his native South Africa. He served as Vice-Chancellor, University of the Witwatersrand, Principal of SOAS and most recently Principal of Green Templeton College, Oxford. As a scholar, he is best known for The Rise & Fall of a South African Peasantry.