Subtitle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa
Author: Patti Waldmeir
Subject: International Politics/Race
Papberback ISBN 0-8135-2582-9
Pages: 304 pp.
Description: "A vividly reported, brilliantly analyzed account of apartheid's demise . . . Waldmeir's account will be cited and debated for years to come. A notable achievement."-Kirkus

"This eyewitness account told with a passion for color and detail, leaves one admiring Ms. Waldmeir's journalistic skills."-New York Times Book Review

"Waldmeir, a 15-year resident as a correspondent for the Financial Times, encapsulates the struggle and draws wonderful portraits not only of [Mandela and de Klerk] but of the other leading figures on both sides, and of the political dilemmas as they moved toward difficult solutions."

-Publishers Weekly

"In her well-written and richly informed book, veteran journalist Waldmeir pushes aside the rhetoric of ahistorical miracles to reveal the processes and personalities that brought down the quintessential racial state. . . . Americans will find the story Waldmeir tells riveting."-Boston Sunday Globe

"The late 1980s were a dismal time inside South Africa. Mandela's African National Congress was banned. Thousands of ANC supporters were jailed without charge. Government hit squads assassinated and terrorized opponents of white rule. Ordinary South Africans, black and white, lived in a perpetual state of dread. Journalist Patti Waldmeir evokes this era of uncertainty in Anatomy of a Miracle, her comprehensive new book about the stunning and-historically speaking-swift tranformation of South Africa from white minority oligarchy to black-ruled democracy. Much that Waldmeir documents in this carefully researched and elegantly written book has been well reported in the press and in previous books. But what distinguishes her work is a reporter's attention to detail and a historian's sense of sweep and relevance. . . .Waldmeir has written a deeply reasoned book, but one that also acknowledges the power of human will and the tug of shared destiny."-Philadelphia Inquirer

Patti Waldmeir is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist working for the Financial Times. She was awarded five stars in Media Guide's 1994 list of the top 500 journalists in the country.