{"product_id":"mandela","title":"Mandela","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe first biography of Nelson Mandela written by an African scholar, t\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ehis groundbreaking book offers a radically de-mythologized take on a global\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e icon of anticolonial liberation struggles\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLeading sociologist Xolela Mangcu draws on original interviews and archival research – as well as on his own unique understanding of the complexities of Black South African culture – to offer an important corrective account of Mandela’s identity, character, and political career. Mangcu not only sets the record straight about Mandela''s Thembu, rather than Xhosa, heritage, but also uncovers a fundamental political pragmatism Mandela developed thanks to his family’s strategic alliances with colonialists and through his own Victorian-style education at leading British mission schools. What emerges is a Mandela whose life story belongs less to the realm of hagiography and more to the realm of real-world struggle, with all the contradictions it entails.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57503758287221,"sku":"9781350522121","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781350522121.jpg?v=1786867469","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/mandela","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}