Book picks similar to
Loosing the Bonds by Bob Massie


history
africa
in-nypl
less-than-1-000-reviews

We Will Be Free: Overlanding In Africa and Around South America


Graeme Robert Bell - 2015
    Written with passion and from the heart, We Will Be Free is more than just another travel book, it is a modern manifesto, a declaration of independence and self sufficiency. “From the title to the very last page of the book, I was intrigued and entertained! It is full of unabashedly honest and hilarious metaphors describing life on the road and what it's like to be a part of the "overlanding tribe."Graeme makes you feel like you are a part of the travel adventure as he divulges his raw, poetic and amusing consciousness.This book is both a salty and a tender work of art about a beautiful family. The Bell family, on paper and in real life, will inspire you to live life fully and in your own way.Overland The Americas”.

Pale Native: Memories of a Renegade Reporter


Max Du Preez - 2003
    Sometimes wacky, sometimes profound, the title is always entertaining, with the odd bit of sleaze.

19 with a Bullet: A South African Paratrooper in Angola


Granger Korff - 2009
    Apart from the 'standard' counterinsurgency activities of Fireforce operations, ambushing and patrols, to contact and destroy SWAPO guerrillas, he was involved in several massive South African Defence Force (SADF) conventional cross-border operations, such as Protea, Daisy and Carnation, into Angola to take on FAPLA (Angolan MPLA troops) and their Cuban and Soviet allies. Having grown up as an East Rand rebel street-fighter, Korff's military 'career' is marred with controversy. He is always in trouble--going AWOL on the eve of battle in order to get to the front; facing a court martial for beating up, and reducing to tears, a sergeant-major in front of the troops; fist-fighting with Drug Squad agents; arrested at gunpoint after the grueling seven-week, 700km Recce selection endurance march--are but some of the colorful anecdotes that lace this account of service in the SADF.

We Dared to Win: The SAS in Rhodesia


Hannes Wessels - 2018
    A quiet, introspective thinker. Andre started out as a trooper in the SAS before being commissioned into the Rhodesian Light Infantry Commandos, where he was engaged in fire-force combat operations. He then rejoined the SAS.Wounded 13 times, his operational record is exceptional even by the tough standards that existed at the time. He emerged as the SAS officer par excellence; beloved by his men, displaying extraordinary calmness, courage, and audacious cunning during a host of extremely dangerous operations. Andre writes vividly about his experience, his emotions, and his state of mind during the war, and reflects candidly on what he learned and how war has shaped his life since.In addition to Andre's personal story, this book reveals more about some of the other men who were distinguished operators in SAS operations during the Rhodesian War.RUNNING TIME ➼ 10hrs. and 48mins.©2018 Hannes Wessels and Andre Scheepers (P)2020 Tantor

Mandela: A Critical Life


Tom Lodge - 2006
    Now, in this new and highly revealing biography, Tom Lodge draws on a wide range of original sources to uncover a host of fresh insights about the shaping of Mandela's personality and public persona, from his childhood days and early activism, through his twenty-seven years of imprisonment, to his presidency of the new South Africa. The book follows Mandela from his education at two elite Methodist boarding schools to his role as a moderating but powerful force in the African National Congress. Throughout, Lodge emphasizes the crucial interplay between Mandela's public career and his private world, revealing how Mandela drew moral and political strength from encounters in which everyday courtesy and even generosity softened conflict. Indeed, the lessons Mandela learned as a child about the importance of defeating ones opponents without dishonoring them were deeply engrained. They shaped a politics of grace and honor that was probably the only approach that could have enabled South Africa's relatively peaceful transition to democracy. Here then is a penetrating look at one of the most celebrated political figures of our time, illuminating a pivotal moment in recent world history.Authoritative and fair-minded...deserves to be read widely.--Adam Roberts, The EconomistA fascinating, indeed riveting, and plausible as well as persuasive examination of why Nelson Mandela should have acquired a world following and can remain as he does an iconic figure even in the 21st century. It is certain to provoke much heated debate.--Desmond Tutu

The Upside of Down: How Chaos and Uncertainty Breed Opportunity in South Africa


Bruce Whitfield - 2020
    You are wasting your time.In a world of fake news, deep-fakes, manipulated feeds of information and divisive social-media agendas, it's easy to believe that our time is the most challenging in human history. It's just not true.It is a time of extraordinary opportunity. But only if you have the right mindset. Fear of the future breeds inaction and leads to strategic paralysis. We put off decisions until we can have certainty. We look for signals. We wait. And while we do that, the world moves on around us.Problem-solvers thrive in chaotic and uncertain times because they act to change their future. Winners recognise that in a world of growing uncertainty, you need to resort to actions on things you can control.And the only things over which you have absolute control are your attitude and your mindset. These, in turn, determine the actions you will take and that will define your future.A robust mindset is the one common characteristic Bruce Whitfield has identified in two decades of interrogating how South Africa's billionaires and start-up mavericks think differently. They are not naive Pollyannas. They don't ignore risk or hope that problems will go away. They constantly measure, manage, consider and weigh up opportunities in a tumultuous sea of uncertainty and find ways around obstacles.If, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller suggests, the stories we tell affect economic outcomes, then we need to tell different stories amidst the noise and haste of a rapidly evolving world.

The Griekwastad Murders: The Crime that Shook South Africa


Jacques Steenkamp - 2014
    It was shortly before 19h00 when Don Steenkamp jumped out of the vehicle and ran into the station’s charge office, covered in blood, to announce that his parents and sister had been brutally shot and killed on the family farm, Naauwhoek. Although the killings were initially thought to be just another farm attack, months later a sixteen-year-old youth was arrested for the murders, setting in motion a chain of events that would grip South Africa, and divide the people of Griekwastad.Based on interviews with all the role-players, including the investigating officers on the case, the forensic and ballistic experts, and family and friends of the deceased, this is the riveting account of what really happened on Naauwhoek farm on that fateful day, as told by the reporter who followed the case from day one…

Churchill & Smuts: The Friendship


Richard Steyn - 2017
    In youth they occupied very different worlds: Churchill, the rambunctious and thrusting young aristocrat; Smuts, the ascetic, philosophical Cape farm boy who would go on to Cambridge where, in an unprecedented achievement, he sat both parts of a law tripos simultaneously and won a double first.Brought together first as enemies in the Anglo-Boer War, and later as allies in the First World War, the men forged a friendship that spanned the first half of the twentieth century and endured until Smuts's death in 1950. Richard Steyn, author of Jan Smuts: Unafraid of Greatness, examines this close friendship through two world wars and the intervening years, drawing on a maze of archival and secondary sources, including letters, telegrams and the voluminous books written about both men.This is a fascinating account of two exceptional men in war and peace: one the leader of an empire, the other the leader of a small fractious member of that empire who rose to global prominence.

South Africa: History in an Hour


Anthony Holmes - 2012
    Read a concise history of South Africa in just one hour.South Africa is a nation that has been ravaged by oppression and racial inequality. After years of concentrated violence and apartheid, Nelson Mandela led the country to unite ‘for the freedom of us all’ as the country’s first black President.SOUTH AFRICA: HISTORY IN AN HOUR gives a lively account of the formation of modern South Africa, from the first contact with seventeenth-century European sailors, through the colonial era, the Boer Wars, apartheid and the establishment of a tolerant democracy in the late twentieth century. Here is a clear and fascinating overview of the emergence of the ‘Rainbow Nation’.Love your history? Find out about the world with History in an Hour…

Charlie Rangers


Don Ericson - 1988
    For eighteen months, John L. Rotundo and Don Ericson braved the test of war at its most bloody and most raw, specializing in ambushing the enemy and fighting jungle guerillas using their own tactics. From the undiluted high of a "contact" with the enemy to the anguished mourning of a fallen comrade, they experienced nearly every emotion known to man--most of all, the power and the pride of being the finest on America's front lines.From the Paperback edition.

Steinheist: Markus Jooste, Steinhoff & SA's biggest corporate fraud


Rob Rose - 2018
    When this investors’ darling was exposed as a house of cards, tales of fraudulent accounting, a lavish lifestyle involving multimillion-rand racehorses and ructions in the ‘Stellenbosch mafia’ made headlines around the world. As regulators tally up the cost, 'Financial Mail' editor Rob Rose reveals the real inside story behind Steinhoff. Based on dozens of interviews with key players in South Africa, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands – and documents not yet public – Steinheist reveals: how Bruno Steinhoff formed the company by doing business in the Communist bloc and apartheid South Africa; how the ‘Markus myth’ started in the dusty streets of Ga-Rankuwa and grew thanks to a ‘bit of luck’ in a 1998 takeover; how Jooste insiders shifted nasty liabilities off Steinhoff’s balance sheet to secretive companies overseas in order to present a false picture of the profits; how Wiese was lucky to lose only R59bn and how Shoprite narrowly escaped getting caught in Steinhoff’s web; and what happened behind closed boardroom doors in the frantic week before Jooste resigned.

After Mandela: The Battle for the Soul of South Africa


Alec Russell - 2009
    But despite Mandela’s mission of reconciliation, rampant inequality remains; race relations are uneasy, violence is endemic and many in the ANC appear to have lost sight of the liberation ideals. With the election in 2009 of Jacob Zuma, a charismatic populist embroiled in scandal, uncertainty over the trajectory of the nation has only intensified. South Africa now stands at a crossroads, and award-winning journalist Alec Russell draws on his deep knowledge of the country to tell us how it got there and to give us a compelling account, revised and updated for this edition, of the journey from Mandela to Zuma.

Battle on the Lomba 1987: The Day a South African Armoured Battalion shattered Angola’s Last Mechanized Offensive - A Crew Commander's Account


David Mannall - 2014
    

The African Adventurers: A Return to the Silent Places


Peter Hathaway Capstick - 1992
    Only Capstick "can write action as cleanly and suspensefully as the best of his predecessors" (Sports Illustrated). This long-awaited sequel to Death in the Silent Places (1981) brings to life four turn-of-the-century adventurers and the savage frontiers they braved.* Frederick Selous, a British hunter, naturalist, and soldier, rewrote the history books with his fearless treks deep into the Dark Continent.* English game ranger Constantine "Iodine" Ionides saved Tanganyikan villages from man-eating lions and leopards. He also gained lasting fame for his uncanny ability to capture black mambas, cobras, Gaboon vipers, and other deadly snakes.* The dashing Brit Johnny Boyes who gained the chieftainship of the Kikuyu tribe with sheer bravado and survived the ferocious battles and ambushes of intertribal warfare.* And Scottish ex-boxer, Jim Sutherland, one of the best ivory hunters who ever lived. His tracking skills and stamina afoot became the stuff of African hunting legend.If you are a Capstick fan, you'll relish The African Adventurers, his eleventh book. Once again he delivers "the kind of chilling stories that Hemingway only heard second-hand...with a flair and style that Papa himself would admire" (Guns and Ammo). The author's pungent wit and his authenticity gained from years in the bush make this quartet of vintage heroics an unforgettable return to the silent places.

Phantom Warriors: Book 2: More Extraordinary True Combat Stories from LRRPS, LRPS, and Rangers in Vietnam


Gary A. Linderer - 2001
    Vastly outnumbered, the patrols faced overwhelming odds as they fought to carry out their missions, from gathering intelligence, acting as hunter/killer teams, or engaging in infamous “Parakeet” flights– actions in which teams were dropped into enemy areas and expected to “develop” the situation. PHANTOM WARRIORS II presents heart-pounding, edge-of-your-seat stories from individuals and teams. These elite warriors relive sudden deadly firefights, prolonged gun battles with large enemy forces, desperate attempts to help fallen comrades, and the sheer hell of bloody, no-quarter combat. The LRRP accounts here are a testament to the courage, guts, daring, and sacrifice of the men who willingly faced death every day of their lives in Vietnam.From the Paperback edition.