MANDELA: AN AUDIO HISTORY by Radio Diaries






Published in 2014 by HighBridge Audio
Hosted by Desmond Tutu
Commentary by Nelson Mandela
Duration: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

Winner of the Audie Award - Audiobook of the Year for 2015.
Considering that Mandela: An Audio History is the history of the entire apartheid era of South Africa in 75 minutes, this short history is surprisingly thorough and very compelling. 

 The audiobook tells the story of apartheid through the story of Nelson Mandela - why he decided to fight against it, how he decided to fight against it, his trial for treason, his time in prison, how the struggle continued with him as the symbol of hope and resistance, the collapse of the apartheid system and it ends with the election of Mandela as president. Each chapter begins with a short introduction by Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu (also a large voice against apartheid).
Nelson Mandela  (1918-2013)
casting his vote in the 1994
election.

The story is mostly told through interviews with Mandela and dozens of others and also includes snippets from radio and TV news broadcasts. Of course, details are left out. Desmond Tutu's Nobel Prize is not mentioned and Winnie Mandela is glossed over and nothing is mentioned about their marital troubles (to be expected considering their age difference and considering that he was imprisoned for such a long part of their marriage) and her implication in a murder and virtual endorsement of the heinous practice of necklacing.

But, like I already noted, things have to be left out if the goal is a short history. This is a very fine short history of apartheid - very approachable and I found it to be quite engrossing. 

 I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Mandela: An Audio History by Radio Diaries. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts over the last 30 days

STAR-SPANGLED JESUS: LEAVING CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM and FINDING a TRUE FAITH (audiobook) by April Ajoy

Image
Published in October of 2024 by Worthy Books. Read by the author, April Ajoy. Duration: 8 hours, 4 minutes. Unabridged. Star-Spangled Jesus is the story of April Ajoy and her spiritual evolution since the political appearance of Donald Trump in 2015-2016.  Is it weird that a politician caused a spiritual evolution?  No, not in a world of Christian Nationalism. For the most basic definition, I am going to say that it is a belief that a person can't truly be an American if they aren't Christian and their rights as an American should reflect that. Also, this is precisely what happened to me, so I get it. Trump shocked me out of the Republican = Good Christian mindset because of the simple reason that he is so overtly antithetical to so many Christian ideals and is proud of it. If the previous paragraph offends or confuses you, you will hate this book.  Ajoy's pre-2015 Christian experience was much more conservative than mine and more intense. Her father was a conservative p...
Read more

SING DOWN the MOON by Scott O'Dell

Image
Originally published in 1970. Named a Newberry Honor Book in 1971. Set in the New Mexico and Arizona territories in 1863-1865, Sing Down the Moon is the story of a teenaged Navajo girl named Bright Morning.  Despite the fact that the American Civil War is raging in the East, this is a tough time for the Navajo. There are pressures from the people they call Spaniards who raid the Navajo and other Native Americans in search of slaves (undoubtedly the "Spaniards" were Spanish-speaking Mexicans that were living in the territory before Mexico lost it to the United States at the end of the Mexican War in 1848.) But, that's not the worst of it. In 1864, the U.S. military under Kit Carson (called Long Knives in this book) rounded up all of the Navajo and put them in a concentration camp called Bosque Redondo. The Navajo in the book are unsure as to why they were forced to come to the camp, but the ongoing threat of Confederate raids into Arizona and New Mexico had a lot to do wi...
Read more

Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan: The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate by Rick Bowers

Image
A Dual Biography of Sorts Published by National Geographic in 2012. Note: This is a YA book aimed at 5th graders and above. This adult enjoyed the book also. From time to time the dual biography comes back into vogue. Dual biographies are a great way to compare and contrast two people's lives and, in this case, this style is used to compare and contrast two different organizations: The Ku Klux Klan and Superman, Inc. and see how these two radically different groups interacted. There is, of course, so such thing as Superman, Inc. - I made that up. Superman is owned by D.C. Comics, but there are people who make all sorts of decisions on how to present Superman. What will he stand for and stand against? What will the next comic be like? How about the next movie? Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan   tells the story of the creation of Superman (and the two young Jewish boys from Ohio who created him) and how Superman quickly caught on once a publisher finally took him on in 1938. ...
Read more

USHERS (short story) by Joe Hill

Image
Published by Amazon Original Stories on November 1, 2024. Synopsis: In Ushers , Martin Lorensen is being questioned by two federal agents that have noticed that he almost died twice in two mass casualty incidents. One was a school shooting that primarily took place in the classroom he shared with the shooter when he was in high school. He got to school that day, but turned around and went home when he got to the front doors - just a few minutes before the shooting started. The other was a tremendous train crash - he almost got onto the train - he was at the station with ticket in hand and walked away after telling a girl and her mom to not get on the train. The federal agents are curious. Is he some sort of terrorist that sets up mass casualty events? Or, is he the luckiest man on the East Coast? My review: This is a well-told short story with an ending  that would have been a welcome addition to the Rod Serling's old Twilight Zone series. I rate this story 5 stars out of 5. It can...
Read more

SIN MIEDO: LECCIONES de REBELDES (en español) by Jorge Ramos)

Image
Published by Celebra in 2016. In Sin Miedo: Lecciones de Rebeldes , Jorge Ramos brings us stories of people that he has interviewed over the years that he considers to be rebels with lessons to offer to all of us. The title can be translated as Fearless: Lessons from Rebels . Some really are literal rebels, some are rebels that became dictators (he has 4 of these), and some are people that really aren't rebels, but are very successful in areas where people like them are not normally successful. If you don't know who Jorge Ramos is, you probably don't watch Univision TV very much. Univision is a Spanish language channel based in Miami and Ramos is their most recognizable news anchor.  The interviewees range all over the place, including Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Fidel Castro, Barbara Walters, George W. Bush, Daniel Ortega, former Presidents of Mexico, two Venezuelan dictators, a Mexican revolutionary leader, Spike Lee, and Richard Branson. Some of the interviews are pretty c...
Read more

TYRANNY, INC.: HOW PRIVATE POWER CRUSHED AMERICAN LIBERTY - AND WHAT to DO ABOUT IT (audiobook) by Sohrab Ahmari

Image
Published in 2023 by Random House Audio. Read by the author, Sohrab Ahmari. Duration: 7 hours, 30 minutes. Unabridged. Writing about government overreach is a common theme among conservatives like Sohrab Ahmari. In Tyranny, Inc . he switches gears and writes about overreach from the private sector instead.  He talks about predatory hedge funds that purchase reasonably healthy companies, load them with debt, and then let them die. He tells the pathetic story of the decline and fall of both Sears and K-Mart, but it's happened over and over again with multiple companies. He also talks about a number of court cases, legal rulings, new laws, and relatively new interpretations of laws that have slid the balance of societal power to private corporations. He gives tons of examples like expansive Non-Disclosure Agreements, tracking software on employee's private phones because they are forced to use them for work, and hidden clauses in multi-page employment agreements that give employer...
Read more

FALKLANDS WAR: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END by Hourly History

Image
Published in 2020 by Hourly History Hourly History specializes in one hour reads about a historical topic. Giant events in history don't fare to well in this series, but a war that lasted 2 and 1/2 months is perfect for this format. This little history tells the history of the Falklands (it keeps switching hands between the U.K., Argentina, and France with occasional periods pf complete abandonment) and continues on to detail the political situations in Argentina and the U.K. leading up to the war. I was 14 years old during this war and one of my friends was very interested in this war while it was going on so I heard about it a lot. But, it turns out that I was about half right about everything I remembered. Surprise! 14 year old misses a lot of things! I thought this was an excellent little history. I rate this e-book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Falklands War: A History from Beginning to End . 
Read more

SWITCHBACK: A PATRICK FLINT NOVEL (audiobook) by Pamala Fagan Hutchins

Image
Published in 2019 by Pamala Fagan Hutchins. Read by the author, Pamala Fagan Hutchins. Duration: 7 hours, 56 minutes. Unabridged. My synopsis: It is 1976 and E.R. Doctor Patrick Flint wants to take his family on a week-long family camping and hunting trip on horseback. He is keenly aware that his teen children are getting older and they won't have too many more opportunities to go on adventures around their Wyoming home. But, things are starting to unravel. His wife decides she doesn't want to go at the last minute. His daughter is complaining because she'll be out in the mountains and away from the boy she is interested in.  So, the family separates for the week and that's when things start to go bad - and once things start to go bad in this book they just don't stop. My review: The basic outlines of Switchback are quite good, especially for the first book in a series. There's a decent amount of world building and the choice to set the book in 1976 removes all...
Read more

BRAVE COMPANIONS: PORTRAITS in HISTORY (audiobook) by David MCCullough

Image
Originally published in hardback book form in 1991. Published by Simon and Schuster Audio. Read by the author, David McCullough Duration: 11 hours, 19 minutes Unabridged Brave Companions: Portraits in History  is a collection of previously published articles and speeches. It's a smattering of this and that - sometimes it's about art, sometimes about scientists, sometimes about politicians and sometimes it's just some musings from McCullough about history. It doesn't matter, almost all of it is interesting and well-told. McCullough understands the value of telling history as a story - as always he is very approachable. My favorite entry was the story of the railroad that preceded the Panama Canal. It was an amazing story of the power of human will against nature. McCullough reads this audiobook, which is great because McCullough has a fantastic speaking voice and is well known for his voice work. I envy both his writing ability and his talents as a speaker. My fav...
Read more

BALKAN WARS: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

Image
Published in September of 2024 by Hourly History. I consider myself pretty well-versed in modern history, but I literally knew almost nothing about the wars that ran rampant through the Balkans just prior to World War I. I knew the area was all in an uproar, but I had no idea that the region had seen multiple all out wars rage throughout in just a few years. Those wars set up the scenario that directly led to World War I. Hourly History specializes in writing histories and biographies that can be read in about an hour. That was enough time for this little history. The reader learns of the decline of the Ottoman Empire and how that created a power vacuum in the Balkans. Then, the reader learns how various ethnic groups in the region fought for their independence and earned it only to fight among themselves over the borders of disputed regions.  Finally, the reader sees how the intervention of the great powers led more fighting and eventually to World War I. This is a very readable ...
Read more