Smuts: A Reappraisal by Bernard Friedman

Description

This is probably one of the most important books that will be published in South Africa in 1975.

Bernard Friedman has long thought that most of the biographies and writings concerning Jan Christiaan Smuts have eulogised the great man without going more deeply into the background and reasons behind many of the decisions made by him. Certainly one was lead to believe that the Field Marshal was an exemplary being quite incapable of blunder or misappreciation of a given situation. Overconfidence to an almost foolhardy degree almost lost Smuts and his party the 1948 election. Undoubtedly a brilliant scholar, lawyer and politician Smuts sat astride the political scene in South Africa like a colossus and became an international statesman, loved by Churchill, and many others, yet hated by his political opponents if only for his intellectual brilliance. Yet the flaws and blemishes in his make-up were there.

This is a careful study of Smuts and his contemporary scene and is not only a fascinating book for political and historical readers but an extremely interesting and absorbing book for general non-fiction reader.