by Richard StengelCrown Publishers
~ Review in Halifax Herald, August 2010
When Richard Stengel collaborated on Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, The Long Walk to Freedom, he spent three years traveling with Nelson Mandela, gathering and distilling information from countless hours of interviews and conversations. He was present at some astonishing moments as the new South Africa began to shake off the years of apartheid. But in his new book, Mandela’s Way, Stengel gives us Nelson Mandela himself, the man who has appeared to the world as larger than life.
These fifteen lessons are Mandela’s wisdom, the thinking and philosophies of an extraordinary man who, when faced with tremendous hardship, refused to let his humanity and spirit be co-opted. He was a strategic man, a gardener, someone who thought carefully before deciding on a course of action. “Most of the mistakes he made in his life came from acting too hastily rather than too slowly. Don’t hurry, he would say; think, analyze, then act.”
At his trial where Mandela faced a possible death penalty, he ended his testimony by saying “. . . I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunity. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
The back cover of this book categorizes Mandela’s Way as a “Self Help - Personal Growth” book - a puzzling and somewhat glib label to apply to a book which outlines the personal philosophy of a great statesman, a man who calls the world’s inhabitants family. Mandela’s Way is part history, part philosophy, part storytelling and always inspiring. Nelson Mandela has much to teach us and some of us have much to learn. However, Mandela’s Way doesn’t preach, or advocate that we change to suit a model. That is not his way. This book simply tells us of how an ordinary man became extraordinary, a lover of people and of life, and it does so in simple direct language which contains the lessons if we want them.
In Richard Stengel’s words: “Many times, I had to ask myself ‘What would Nelson Mandela do?’ … It always made me, at least in those moments, a better person - calmer, more rational, more generous.”
Richard Stengel is the editor of Time magazine, author and documentary film maker. He collaborated with Nelson Mandela on Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.
