Why read Rivonia's Children?

Book cover of Rivonia's Children: Three Families and the Cost of Conscience in White South Africa

Book description

Frankel, a staff writer and editor for The Washington Post , tells the story of a handful of white activists, many of them Jewish, who risked their lives to combat apartheid in South Africa during the 1960s. Their underground headquarters was in Rivonia, a Johannesburg suburb, and it was there…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Rivonia's Children as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

John Tilston

Author

This Pulitzer prize-winning book tells the tale of three white men who worked with Nelson Mandela and his cohorts striving to end the brutal rule of Apartheid.

They were arrested, tried, and convicted of ‘terrorism’, alongside Mandela. This granular narrative is the story of their capture and trial, the impact on them and their families, the hostility of the state and white South Africans towards these ‘radicals,’ who in any Western society would be considered human rights activists.

It has resonance for me because I grew up in Southern Africa; I was opposed to the rigid racial policies but didn’t…

From John's list on British history beyond cliche, ideology, and spin.