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Long Walk to Freedom : The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
by Nelson Mandela (Paperback - October 1995) 625 pages
Little Brown & Co (Pap); ISBN: 0316548189;
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The famously taciturn South African president reveals much of himself in Long Walk to Freedom. A good deal of this  autobiography was written secretly while Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years on  Robben Island by South Africa's apartheid regime. Among the book's interesting  revelations is Mandela's ambivalence toward his lifetime of devotion to public works. It cost him two marriages and kept him distant from a family life he  might otherwise have cherished. Long Walk to Freedom also discloses a  strong and generous spirit that refused to be broken under the most trying  circumstances - a spirit in which just about everybody can find something to admire.

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Churchill: A Biography
by: Roy Jenkins; November, 2001
Hardcover: 736 pages ; Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux;
 ISBN: 0374123543;

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Marked by the author's wide experience writing on  British leaders such as Balfour and Gladstone and his tenure as a member of  Parliament, his book adds much to the vast library of works on Churchill. While  acknowledging his subject's prickly nature, Jenkins credits Churchill for, among  other things, recognizing far earlier than his peers the dangers of Hitler's regime. He praises Churchill for his leadership during the war years, especially  at the outset, when England stood alone and in imminent danger of defeat. He  also examines Churchill's struggle to forge political consensus to meet that desperate crisis, and he sheds new light on Churchill's postwar decline

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An Autobiography : The Story of My Experiments With Truth
by Mahadev Desai (Translator), et al (Paperback - November 1993)
528  pages  Beacon Pr; ISBN: 0807059099  ;
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Gandhi's nonviolent struggles in South Africa and India  had already brought him to such a level of notoriety, adulation, and controversy that when asked to write an autobiography midway through his career, he took it as an opportunity to explain himself. Although accepting of his status as a great innovator in the struggle against racism, violence, and, just then,  colonialism, Gandhi feared that enthusiasm for his ideas tended to exceed a deeper understanding. He says that he was after truth rooted in devotion to God  and attributed the turning points, successes, and challenges in his life to the  will of God. His attempts to get closer to this divine power led him to seek purity through simple living, dietary practices (he called himself a fruitarian),  celibacy, and ahimsa, a life without violence. It is in this sense that he calls his book The Story of My Experiments with Truth, offering it  also as a reference for those who would follow in his footsteps. A reader  expecting a complete accounting of his actions, however, will be sorely  disappointed  

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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
by: Malcolm X, Malcolm X
December, 1989
Publisher: African American Images; ISBN: 0345350685

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Malcolm X's searing memoir belongs on the small shelf of great autobiographies. The reasons are many: the blistering honesty with which he recounts his  transformation from a bitter, self-destructive petty criminal into an articulate  political activist, the continued relevance of his militant analysis of white racism, and his emphasis on self-respect and self-help for African Americans. And there's the vividness with which he depicts black popular culture--try as he might to criticize those lindy hops at Boston's Roseland dance hall from the  perspective of his Muslim faith, he can't help but make them sound pretty  wonderful. These are but a few examples. The Autobiography of Malcolm X limns an  archetypal journey from ignorance and despair to knowledge and spiritual  awakening. --Wendy Smith

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