Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom – Book Review"…calm, patient determination to claim this country as ours, and now the joy we can proclaim loudly from the rooftops--Free at last!... This is the time to heal old wounds and build a new South Africa." Nelson Mandela fought his whole life. Nelson Mandela fought a battle for civil rights in South Africa on the streets and behind prison walls. Even after 27 years behind those walls Mandela maintained his dignity and became South Africa's first black president. Nelson Mandela's autobiography "The Long Walk to Freedom" was written up to the point when Mandela won the first free elections in South Africa in 1994. Before reading the following summary, the reader should know that this is a autobiography, written by Mandela himself, so there will be bias, but by doing some outside research on Mandela you would find that Mandela is not a person who holds a grudge against his oppressors. In the Transki region, along the Indian Ocean, on July 18, 1918, Mandela was born to a Thembu chief and his third wife. Mandela was raised by his mother where they led a simple life, a self-sufficient tribe. Here they farmed and raised their own livestock. This was a black tribal community where the Anglo-Saxons were considered gods from another place; they were to be viewed with amazement and fear. In this black community a black teacher gave him the easy-to-pronounce (and white) name Nelson. At the age of nine Nelson received the news that his father had died. So he left his mother village to be raised by the Thembu Council. This was the regional center where all the tribal leaders met and...... middle of paper...... The story of ts.Mandela is a broader in-depth exploration than just the apartheid overview of the South Africa provided by the book text. The writing of the autobiography is easy to read, clear and precise. It contains no footnotes or endnotes, but in most biographies of any kind there are few citations. There are no maps, graphs or tables, but in the spirit of following one man's story there could only be a timeline, but a timeline would be dwarfed by the 27 years Mandela spent in prison. Long Walk to Freedom is a useful book and provides the reader with an understanding of the struggle that all minorities (and even majorities) of oppressed people face. And how a good soul can rise above hatred and forgive his oppressors to become a universally acclaimed symbol for the pursuit of uncompromising freedom.*note - all quotes from "Long Walk to Freedom""