Mandela’s Way: Fifteen Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage
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- ISBN13: 9780739383339
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
We long for heroes and have too few. Nelson Mandela, who recently celebrated his ninety-first birthday, is the closest thing the world has to a secular saint. He liberated a country from a system of violent prejudice and helped unite oppressor and oppressed in a way that had never been done before.
Now Richard Stengel, the editor of Time magazine, has distilled countless hours of intimate conversation with Mandela into fifteen essential life lessons. For nearly three years, including the critical period when Mandela stirred South Africa toward the first democratic elections in its history, Stengel collaborated with Mandela on his autobiography and traveled with him everywhere. Eating with him, watching him battle, hearing him reflect out loud, Stengel came to know all the different sides of this complex man and became a cherished friend and colleague.
In Mandela’s Way, Stengel recounts the moments in which “the grandfather of South Africa” was tested and shares the wisdom he learned: why courage is more than the absence of dread, why we should keep our rivals close, why the answer is not permanently either/or but regularly “both,” how vital it is for each of us to find something away from the world that gives us pleasure and satisfaction—our own garden. Natural fiber into these life lessons are remarkable tales—of Mandela’s childhood as the protégé of a clannish king, of his early days as a freedom fighter, of the twenty-seven-year imprisonment that could not break him, and of his new and fulfilling marriage at the age of eighty.
This compact book is very much inspiring. It captures the spirit of this extraordinary man—warrior, martyr, spouse, statesman, and moral leader—and spurs us to look within ourselves, reconsider the things we take for granted, and contemplate the legacy we’ll place behind.
From the Hardcover edition.
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This is hagiography, pure and simple.
The leader, Richard Stengel, Managing Editor of Time Magazine, not only makes his innocent admiration – or perhaps veneration would be the better word – absolutely clear, but goes further and marks Barack Obama “[Mandela's] right successor on the world stage” in many ways. I am not joking.
Personally I have mixed views toward Mandela. I do not doubt that he has fantastic personal courage, but I also question his use of violence to achieve political objectives. His post-prison political life was not lacking blemish. But one does not need to be a saint or lead a perfect life to be admirable in some respects.
But Stengel buries whatever actual virtues Mandela may have in mountains of glowing praise for everything Mandela may have reportedly said, thought or done.
The worldly Stengel is awed by Mandela not being unnerved when one of the two engines on his aircraft is shut down in flight. Well, Mr. Sengel is rumor has it that unaware that twin-engine aircraft are certified to be able to glide on one engine. Remaining cool when a not all that unusual in-flight engine shutdown occurs is hardly an example of “Courage Is Not The Absence Of Dread”.
Stengel’s apparent acceptance of violence in effectuating political change is disturbing, considering the abuse he loads on peaceful American protestors in the pages of Time Magazine. Stengel in language of Mandela’s life lesson of “Have a Core Principle” clarifies Mandela’s violence by his being upset with the violence shown by the South African government. Neither Gandhi nor King, for example, resorted to violence in the face of violence – yet Stengel would have us judge it that Mandela showed courage in leading the violent wing of the political party he belonged to. Stengel rationalizes away Mandela’s propensity for violence by simply adage that Mandela “is not and never was a Gandhi”. Uhmmmm, okay. Then what is valuable in Mandela’s lesson here? When government displeases you, blow something up?
To Stengel, Mandela is a larger than life hero or at least he pretends such is the case. There is small in “Mandela’s Way” in terms of lie lessons that you couldn’t also find in a Norman Vincent Peale or additional self-help book. Mandela is painted in really transparent hagiographic terms which quickly become wearing, tedious and ultimately dull.
Stengel has already made reasonably a splash on Mandela’s fame, authoring a 1993 biography with the man and co-producing a 1996 documentary. Pardon my cynicism, but my overall feeling is that Stengel is doing nothing more here than returning to the well for another dip in the reflected glory of Nelson Mandela.
Jerry
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
Richard Stengel worked with Nelson Mandela on his memoir, I read Stengel’s new book Mandela’s Way, over a period of one week, but it is enjoyable enough to end in one sitting.
There are certain inalienable rights everyone is entitled to.
Mandela is their champion.
Where there is life, there is hope.
Mandela is testimony, you never stop growing.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
Richard Stengel demonstrates an extraordinary ability to extract the fifteen lessons on life, like and courage, attributed to his interviews with Nelson Mandela.
All fantastic men have certain precepts that they live by and engage.
What makes Mandela’s Way so insightful is the course of life that he has lended them to.
After reading the book, it prompted me to review a number of times the title of each chapter and skim again.
Mandela’s thought processes are nearly a CONSCIENCE, a thoughtful and careful leadership that took all into account.
In our own personal lives, we all have power, the ability to be family tree, brothers and sisters, to expect the best, to listen carefully, to keep our core principles, to effectively compromise for the better excellent, to be measured, to know, and work to better, the negative impact of one’s rivals and enemies, not rush to judgement.
Lessons to be learned again and again!
Wonderful book, an honored place in my library.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
What might seem a simple task, that of distilling 15 principles a legendary leader uses or has used either implicitly or explicitly in his attempt to heal the world, is expertly rendered by Richard Stengel, although the fact that he is also the leader of Mandela’s biography certainly helped. Stengel seems to know Mandela as well as anyone (excluding of course Mandela himself), and the writing is clear, fluid and with the precise level of discourse to communicate the beliefs, action, and perhaps most hard, the style of his theme. What makes the task particularly challenging is that Stengel shows Mandela to be a complex man, with a personality natural fiber together through incredibly disparate strands: a “mentee” of African Kings, a student of British education, a natural logician honed by the experience of officially authorized studies and lawyering, a figurative and literal political rebel, and of course, a political prisoner for 27 years.
Stengel uses biographical synopsis, anecdote, direct quotations, interviews with Mandela and others who know him or knew him to focus on the lessons on ‘life, like and courage.” The leader is also wise enough to know that expository prose is not automatically ‘competent’ to clarify the essence of this complexity and uses a very apt quote from Whitman to summarize Mandala’s character: “Do I contracdict myself?/Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large. I contain multitudes). Fortunately, for the world it seems Mandela’s ‘mulitudes’ were in the service of a point goal: equality, and the rest was and has been strategy. And one thing is evident from reading these lessons: Mandala learned to be a master of strategy.
One could even say that every moment of his public life was in service of this goal, and considering the obstacles he faced in transforming South Africa, he was the right man at the right time–an nearly preternatural alignment of what a society and a world needed and the person who possessed the character to fulfill the need.
I don’t know whether the leader or theme of the book knows Orwell’s line, “It is the job of a man not to be a saint,” but Mandela seems to have this engrained in his being. The difference perhaps between the complexities of Mandala and the complexity of many others is that they all seem to have operated in an extremely unified fashion, so, for example, he could hide dread when needed, compliment adversaries to make them less adversarial, help others to reach ‘brilliant’ conclusions so that they would reflect that they reached them on their own, or act humbly to defuse the overly aggrandizing.
This is no goofy management tome or guide for the seekers of spirituality. It’s not a feel excellent book, how to book, or instruction book. Stengel presents Mandela’s Way to the reader to consider. If the result is that the reader ponders or meditates upon these lessons, that is sufficient. This style seems also reminiscent of Orwell, who knew that being didactic is the worst way to win a name over to your cause or way of thinking.
It takes years to become a martial arts practiced, so if you become a Mandela ‘yes man’ or ‘no man’ right off the bat, you will have lost the point of the book, and you will be poorer for it. Judge me, this is something you will not want to miss. As for the specifics: read the book.
(Proviso: I’d add that the leader makes a brief observation that Obama has some of Mandela’s virtues. Whether or not you like Obama, I would take this premature comparison as an leader’s overenthusiasm, something that Mandela himself would never fall prey to).
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I really loved this book–far, far more, really, than I expected to. From the very first page, Stengel pulled me in to Mandela–a very human icon–and pushed me to want to reflect and know more about this man. It’s hard to realize at times that there are past people–towering past facts who have shaped and changed destinies–living in our own times. Mandela is such a figure and Stengel captures his charisma and contradictions.
“Mandela’s Way” is part biography, part self-help manual, part inspirational guide. There are additional books that wish to this combination, but the difference is that Stengel truly KNOWS Mandela, has spent exhaustive time with him over years–even helped him write his autobiography, which was the reason they met in the first place, to secure that help.
Stengel is an insider–can find flaws but clearly likes and admires Mandela. It’s a fantastic balance.
It’s also a fascinating read. Are the 15 lessons appealing and worth thinking about and learning from? I reflect so. I’ve establish myself thinking about several of them in the course of a day.
But the largest asset of the book, for me, is the biographical information, Mandela as described by Stengel. This is such fascinating stuff–so well told–that I would recommend “Mandela’s Way” as part of the required reading list for a high school or college course. It could spark many appealing discussions/insights with students and is very worthwhile in any number of ways..
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5