2001 paperback with 257 pages in very good condition.

Many biographies have been written of Jan Smuts but none have achieved so close an examination of the interpersonal and political relationships of Smuts as Professor Ockie Geyser has portrayed in Jan Smuts and his International Contemporaries. This exceptional study of Smuts covers a broad period of history: from 1888 when Smuts was indirectly in contact with Cecil John Rhodes to 1948, thus spanning the period of the Anglo-Boer War and the two world wars. Although Smuts is said to have had a reserved nature, his versatility was undoubtedly and important part of his complex personality. This versatility attracted people's attention from all spheres of life. Jan Smuts and his International Contemporaries provides an analysis of the relationships that placed Smuts in a prominent position in the councils of the world. His insight into world affairs and his exceptional intellectual abilities made him a sought-after confidante and advisor to several governments, politicians, and distinguished leaders worldwide. In a time when people tend to ignore history and how things came to be the way they are today, this book can do much to revive interest in some of the most interesting people of the previous century. These included Cecil John Rhodes, Alfred Milner, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, David Lloyd Geoge, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Eamon de Valera, the Windsors, Charles de Gaulle, and Adolf Hitler, all of whose paths crossed that of Jan Smuts. Read how this "sickly, rickety child" "an unprepossessing lad showing no signs of promise" not only became prime minister, but a world leader and one of the most influential people ever to ocme out of South Africa. Read what great world leaders said of him, and he of them! And how, together, they shaped the world political scene of their time.