Any serious American reader of WWI, WWII and 20th century diplomatic history has certainly come across the name Jan Smuts, often in hushed and reverential tones. In “Jan Smuts: Unafraid of Greatness”, South African author Richard Steyn gives us as worthy a treatment in 285 pages as possible of a man who can be considered one of the great intellects and men of action in both the Victorian era and the 20th century - but a man hopelessly consigned to an era of stale white supremacy in a nation that ultimately rejected and forgot him.
The book is a quick and well-paced read, divided into two parts. The first in a more conventional narrative of the second son of an Afrikaner farm family - first attending school at age 12 on account of the death of his older brother. What happens next is the almost dizzying meritocratic rise of perhaps the most talented son ever produced by the British empire - legendary educational achievement at Christ’s College at Cambridge (where the college Master declared that in 500 years, only Newton, Milton and Smuts could be called “truly outstanding”), return to Cape Town, and the inevitable recruitment into politics. We are introduced to an outwardly kind man “who did not know how to have fun”, a man of courage and leadership but perhaps lacking the common touch, and plainly a man so much more intelligent yet guileless than his peers that he often came across as aloof or intimidating. We see the roots of a great humanist and philosopher (the originator of “Holism”), but built of the Imperial bedrock of his times that could not see native Africans as worthy of ruling their own continent. Steyn does a wonderful job setting this personality as the template to understand the next 60 years of his extraordinary life.
If for no other reason, the book is worth reading for the sheer narrative of Smut’s life - he would go on to become a daring commando and Boer General (and interrogate a captured Winston Churchill), lead the reconciliation and immersion back into the British Empire, twice become the PM of South Africa, become a member of the British War cabinet in WWI, design and found the structure of the British RAF used to this day, and practically invent the League of Nations yet fight bitterly and with prescience against the harsh terms of Versailles, fearing German revanchism and falling on deaf ears. He was perhaps the prime mover of the founding of Israel, yet was accused of ignoring his South African home and eventually booted as PM. Steyn does a wonderful job pulling a linear story from a man involved and sought in everything - by WWII, it was agreed with Royal consent that now Field Marshall Smuts would serve as British Prime minister during the war if Churchill was incapacitated. Almost as an echo, we see someone who wrote the preamble and precepts of the UN, but was rejected yet again by inward looking nationalists in his homeland.
Where the book excels is the second house, where Steyn focuses on the personality and thoughts of the man in greater detail. What emerges as a portrait of a man who felt the most productive and important years were not those in office, but those spent trekking the South African Veld, understanding the world around him and developing his philosophy of Holism. As with so many men so intelligent, his idiosyncrasies are laid bare and treated fairly but firmly by Steyn. A man of faith, yet a humanist without crude religiosity, a man most stimulated in the company of intelligent women yet free of crude womanizing, we see a portrait of what made him an exceptional person yet an ultimately failed national leader. Ultimately, what emerges is a generational talent and “great man” of a long ago era - and a fascinating biography.
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Top reviews from other countries
Maaike S.M. van de Pijpekamp
Fascinating
Reviewed in the Netherlands on August 14, 2022
ajcrou
Une synthèse impressionnante sur un homme politique majeur de la première moitié du XXe siècle mais aujourd'hui oublié.
Reviewed in France on October 10, 2017Mick Etheridge
"THE SKIN MAY BE WHITE BUT IS THE MAN?".
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 27, 2016
Amazon Customer
the cradle of mankind past and great men of the recent past
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 8, 2015