MOZAMBIQUE'S SAMORA MACHEL, foreword by Albie Sachs

255pp., illus., map. paperback, First SA Edition, Johannesburg, 2021

First published in the USA in 2020.

Samora Machel (1933–1986) led the people of Mozambique through a war against the Portuguese colonists and became the first President of the People’s Republic of Mozambique. In 1986 he died in a plane crash under circumstances that remain uncertain.

“Allen the idealist and Barbara the sceptic joined forces to provide us with a portrait of a great African leader that is rich, loving, and incisive.” Albie Sachs, from his foreword

“Acutely attuned to the politics of memory, the authors scrutinize a diverse - often conflicting - array of public and private archival sources, memoirs, scholarly literature, and oral sources to assess the life of this remarkable, complex African leader.” Edward A. Alpers, author of East Africa and the Indian Ocean

Allen F. Isaacman, Regents Professor of History at the University of Minnesota and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Western Cape, is the author of seven books, including the co-authored (with Barbara Isaacman) Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development, winner of the ASA Book Prize (formerly Herskovits Award) and the AHA Klein Prize in African History. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has won fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, among others

Barbara S. Isaacman, a retired criminal defense attorney, worked with the Mozambican Woman’s Movement and taught at the Law Faculty of the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane while living in Mozambique in the late 1970s. She is the author of Mozambique - women, the law, and agrarian reform.