Long Walk to Freedom

Nelson Mandel’s autobiography from his early life through the 27 years he spent in prison before becoming South Africa's first democratically elected President.

This book taught me about trying to be a better person despite your circumstances and being wronged by others. It also gave me hope that my imprisonment could be just a chapter in my journey and didn’t need to be the defining experience of my life.

I’m often asked which leaders I most admire, and my response is always hesitant, mainly because like everyone else, leaders are flawed, and because there are lots of people who are leaders that I admire but they are not always in the public eye and often very humble people. I was in the audience when Mandela came to Oxford University in 2002 and the students spontaneously started singing the South African national anthem as he walked in; it was an incredibly moving moment. This book represents both the best kind of leader and also the personal sacrifices that are a… show more.

An extraordinary personal testimony to courage, steadfast resolve, principle, sacrifice, and strong leadership from the greatest, most iconic figure of the 20th century. From herd-boy to freedom fighter, from prisoner to President this is an inspiring story for our age by someone my parents knew from their campaigning against apartheid in Pretoria in the late 1950s/early 1960s; and I met after he was released from prison.

If you are looking for riveting reading, this book kept me awake into the early hours of the morning.

It isn’t just the poverty of Mandela’s beginnings that captured me, nor the cruelty of Apartheid that was so much a part of his family’s history, it is his ability to “turn the other cheek”. His defiance in the face of certain retribution because he believed that he had to make a better world for his fellow man, is an example of what true belief is all about.

Even during his hardest times during the quarter of a century that he… show more.

Perhaps the most inspiring African figure of the twentieth century, this is Nelson Mandela’s story written in his own words. The book allows you to find out a lot more about his childhood, his struggle against apartheid, and most of all his resilience and strength of spirit during his 27-year imprisonment. Despite all his suffering and mistreatment, Mandela never gave up hope and refused to give in to hatred, even forgiving his tormentors once released. A book to be read and a message/example that we should all endeavour to follow.  

The former South African president and freedom fighter Nelson Mandela is, in so many ways, the heroes’ hero. He’s an iconic figure in the world today and will remain so long after his death. This book is such a moving autobiography, one of the finest memoirs I’ve ever read. You learn so much about the man, his early years, his battles, and his 27 years in prison, and to emerge from that such a generous and forgiving man… It blew me away. In London, I’d done some work for the Anti-Apartheid Movement in its campaign for an end to apartheid… show more.

Long Walk to Freedom is the only book on my list written by its subject, and for this reason it may well be the most powerful. Mandela’s story—in broadest outlines—is well-known: activist, freedom fighter, prisoner, and, of course, leader of post-apartheid South Africa. But reading Mandela’s autobiography will change how you understand this man. Indeed, you will be transformed as you follow him through the radically different stages of his life, as he evolves from a violent rebel to a nonviolent visionary capable of ending apartheid without a bloody civil war, as he describes how the impossible becomes possible.  

For me, this book gives hope to every struggle because it shows that, in the end, it is possible for the oppressed to outlive the oppressor. The story chronicles the early life of Nelson Mandela and the 27 years he spent in prison on Robben Island under the apartheid regime of South Africa. While he would later rise to become president, his prison experience shows the resilience of a man whose spirit remained unbroken under one of the most oppressive regimes ever. Mandela teaches us that the struggle against injustice and oppression must be unrelenting until total freedom is attained.

Well……duh! The term “icon” is undoubtedly overused these days, but if anyone deserves it, it would be Mandela. Published in South Africa’s annus mirabilis of 1994, when Mandela became the country’s first democratically-elected president, the book traces his rural childhood, his move to the big city, his anti-apartheid activism from the 1940s to 1960s, his 27 years imprisonment, and the difficult transition to majority rule. Mandela began the memoir secretly when on Robben Island, the maximum security jail offshore from Cape Town. Very readable, and utterly inspirational.

Mandela is one of my all-time heroes. A great man and leader who was treated with unfathomable cruelty yet never wavered in his beliefs or in his grace. He spent 27 years unjustly imprisoned yet invited his jailers to his inauguration. It is important to me to follow our heroes, and to try to model ourselves over the great men and women who have come before us.  If Mandela could endure all he had to go through, and still end up achieving all he did, there is no reason any of us can’t do all we set our minds and… show more.