Abstract

This is an unconventional, contemporary biography of Thabo Mbeki, the current South African President, with a strong journalistic slant, focusing on representations in the media, and how media images of him have changed over time. It contains press features and articles on Mbeki, political cartoons, and transcriptions of interviews he has given over the years, including his testimony with Oliver Tambo before the Foreign Affairs Committee on the necessity for economic sanctions in 1985; and on the period as Deputy President, and President-in-waiting from 1995. As a whole, the work emphasises Mbeki as a politician working within the tradition of the ANC, and as a pragmatist. It focuses on his leadership in the context of his society; his race and identity politics; and his handling of the Zimbabwean land and the South African HIV/AIDS crises.