Nelson Mandela: a biography by Martin Meredith, Hamish Hamilton, $220 Nelson Mandela is admired by international heavyweights, pop stars and common people alike as a man with stature and principles in a world where such qualities are rare among leaders, and for his lack of bitterness after so many years as a political prisoner.
But Mr Mandela is no living saint, and while widely respected, his errors of judgment are visible. Recently he was criticised for allowing himself to be photographed with Michael Jackson and with the Spice Girls - acts akin to endorsing commercial products, not something expected of a statesperson.
There have been more serious gaffes. Martin Meredith writes in this new biography that the African National Congress (ANC) recognised Mr Mandela as its 'greatest asset, its elder statesman, able to achieve for the ANC a degree of international respectability and support that would otherwise be missing . . . [but] his pronouncements, notably on foreign affairs, sometimes left ANC officials aghast'.
For example, Mr Mandela praised Fidel Castro and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi to the Americans who consider them their top bogeys.
Little is known of Mr Mandela's inner thoughts, and Meredith barely gets behind the mask. Even those who knew him for many years - political associates, and those who shared his prison years on Robben Island - regard him as aloof, inscrutable and autocratic, an intensely private man. Coupled with his years underground and in jail where few came into contact with him, this makes the biographer's task difficult.
Meredith spends more pages on politics than on understanding Mr Mandela. His account of Mr Mandela's childhood, being brought up by a tribal king, is inadequate and draws heavily on Mr Mandela's autobiography, A Long Walk to Freedom, still a best-seller after three years and now being abridged for use in schools.