Playing the enemy : Nelson Mandela and the game that made a nation / John Carlin.

Playing the enemy : Nelson Mandela and the game that made a nation / John Carlin.

9781594201745
1594201749

New York : Penguin Press, 2008.

English

274 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

DT1949.M35 C282 2008

968.06/5
968.064092 22

In 1985, Nelson Mandela, then in prison for 23 years, set about winning over the fiercest proponents of apartheid, from his jailers to the head of South Africa's military. First he earned his freedom and then he won the presidency in the nation's first free election in 1994. But he knew that South Africa was still dangerously divided. If he couldn't unite his country in a visceral, emotional way--and fast--it would collapse into chaos. He would need all the charisma and strategic acumen he had honed during half a century of activism, and he'd need a cause all South Africans could share. Mandela picked one of the more farfetched causes imaginable--the national rugby team, the Springboks, who would host the sport's World Cup in 1995. Author Carlin, former South Africa bureau chief for the London Independent, offers a portrait of the greatest statesman of our time in action.--From publisher description.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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