African culture

The World That Made Mandela: A Heritage Trail – 70 Sites of Significance

Luli Callinicos, one of South Africa’s eminent historians, has created an extraordinary documentary of a book in which geography and history blend, and the collective life and image of a nation is focused through the life of one individual – Nelson Mandela.

Using a thousand images of past and present, The World That Made Mandela moves from rural villages to the hectic metropolis, from Districy Six to Robben Island. Tracing his footsteps through sites of public struggle and private development, it illuminates many hidden spaces in our history, while casting new light on the familiar.

South Africans will find The World That Made Mandela a rich reflection of their cultural and political heritage, and visitors to the country will discover in it the faces of our past and our people.

“This fine book brings to light our living history. Here are the people and events of our past, commemorated in the places that map the pathway to our country’s liberation.” – Nelson Mandela

“Every South African should read this book.” – Walter Sisulu

“Greatness is inborn. But it is what it makes of the time, place and circumstances with which and in which it develops that it is manifest. Luli Callinicos has done something prodigious. The World That Made Mandela is a stunningly fascinating book, on a level high above hagiography, graphic – in both rare photographs and informative text – a fulfilling experience of the exaltation and tragedy by which history, in the hands of greatness, moves on, and leaves its traces for us to visit in sites and landscapes.” – Nadine Gordimer