Nelson Mandela's Reading List
Notable reader profiled on radicalreads.com. 8 favorite books recommended in their radicalreads feature.
Open in WellRead Daily app →Favorite books (2019)
Favorite books recommended by Nelson Mandela, as compiled by radicalreads.com. Source article: https://radicalreads.com/nelson-mandela-favorite-books/.
Source: radicalreads.com
Deneys Reitz, I read of the unconventional guerrilla tactics of the Boer generals during the Anglo-Boer War. I read works by and about Che Guevara, Mao Tse-tung, Fidel Castro. In Edgar Snow’s brilliant Red Star Over China I saw that it was Mao’s determination and nontraditional thinking that led him to victory. I read The Revolt by Menachem Begin and was encouraged by the fact that the Israeli leader had led a guerrilla force in a country with neither mountains nor forests, a situation similar to our own. I was eager to know more about the armed struggle of the people of Ethiopia against Mussolini, and of the guerrilla armies of Kenya, Algeria, and the Cameroons. I went into the South African past. I studied our history both before and after the white man. I probed the wars of African against African, of African against white, of white against white. I made a survey of the country’s chief industrial areas, the nation’s transportation system, its communication network. I accumulated detailed maps and systematically analyzed the terrain of different regions of the country.” · Buy on Amazon
the censors. War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, though it is a work of science fiction, would be turned down because the word war appeared in its title. From the first, I tried to read books about South Africa or by South African writers. I read all the unbanned novels of Nadine Gordimer and learned a great deal about the white liberal sensibility. I read many American novels, and recall especially John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath , in which I found many similarities between the plight of the migrant workers in that novel and our own laborers and farm workers. One book that I returned to many times was Tolstoy’s great work, War and Peace . (Although the word wa r was in the title, this book was permitted.)” · Buy on Amazon
Menachem Begin · Buy on Amazon
"I read The Revolt by Menachem Begin and was encouraged by the fact that the Israeli leader had led a guerrilla force in a country with neither mountains nor forests, a situation similar to our own."
Carl von Clausewitz (also rec’d by Bob Dylan ) · Buy on Amazon
"Clausewitz’s central thesis, that war was a continuation of diplomacy by other means, dovetailed with my own instincts."
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels · Buy on Amazon
"While I was stimulated by the Communist Manifesto , I was exhausted by Das Kapital . But I found myself strongly drawn to the idea of a classless society, which, to my mind, was similar to traditional African culture where life was shared and communal. I subscribed to Marx’s basic dictum, which has the simplicity and generosity of the Golden Rule: “From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs."
William Shakespeare (also rec’d by Jane Goodall ) · Buy on Amazon
"A copy of Shakespeare’s complete works was one of few books Mandela had access to when imprisoned on Robben Island. Known as the “Robben Island Bible,” the book was smuggled in and circulated among inmates, who signed their names in the margins. Mandela wrote his next to the lines: “Cowards die many times before their deaths/The valiant never taste of death but once."
Leo Tolstoy (also rec’d by Bob Dylan , Ernest Hemingway & Martin Luther King Jr. ) · Buy on Amazon
"One book that I returned to many times was Tolstoy’s great work, War and Peace . (Although the word war was in the title, this book was permitted.) I was particularly taken with the portrait of General Kutuzov, whom everyone at the Russian court underestimated. Kutuzov defeated Napoleon precisely because he was not swayed by the ephemeral and superficial values of the court, and made his decisions on a visceral understanding of his men and his people. It reminded me once again that to truly l..."