Playing the Enemy
Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Read the book that inspired the Academy Award and Golden Globe winning 2009 film INVICTUS featuring Morgan Freeman and Matt Daymon, directed by Clint Eastwood.
Beginning in a jail cell and ending in a rugby tournament- the true story of how the most inspiring charm offensive in history brought South Africa together. After being released from prison and winning South Africa's first free election, Nelson Mandela presided over a country still deeply divided by fifty years of apartheid. His plan was ambitious if not far-fetched: use the national rugby team, the Springboks-long an embodiment of white-supremacist rule-to embody and engage a new South Africa as they prepared to host the 1995 World Cup. The string of wins that followed not only defied the odds, but capped Mandela's miraculous effort to bring South Africans together again in a hard-won, enduring bond.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Carlin offers the final dramatic chapters of how then president Nelson Mandela and his wily strategy of using a sporting event the Sprinkboks rugby team in the 1995 World Cup to mend South Africa. Carlin, a senior international writer for El Pa s, quotes Mandela: "Sports has the power to change the world.... It is more powerful than government in breaking down racial barriers." After giving an informed capsule history of apartheid's bitter legacy and Mandela's noble stature as a leader, the scene is set for the influential rugby match between the solid New Zealand team and the scrappy South African squad in the finals of the World Cup, with 43 million blacks and whites awaiting the outcome. All of the cast in Afrikaner lore are here Botha, DeKlerk, Bernard, Viljeon as they match wits with Mandela. Carlin concludes this excellent book of redemption and forgiveness with chapters that depict how a divided country can be elevated beyond hate and malice to pride and healing.
