President Cyril Ramaphosa is South Africa's fifth post-apartheid president. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as the founder of the National Union of Mineworkers. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February 1990, Ramaphosa was at the head of the reception committee that greeted him. Chosen as secretary general of the African National Congress in 1991, Ramaphosa led the ANC's team in negotiating the country's post-apartheid constitution. Thwarted in his ambition to succeed Mandela, he exchanged political leadership for commerce, ultimately becoming one of the country's wealthiest businessmen, a breeder of exotic cattle, and a philanthropist.

This fully revised and extended edition charts Ramaphosa's early life and education, and his career in trade unionism - including the 1987 21-day miners' strike when he committed the union to the wider liberation struggle - politics, and constitution-building. Extensive new chapters explore his contribution to the National Planning Commission, the effects of the Marikana massacre on his political prospects, and the real story behind his rise to the deputy presidency of the country in 2014. They set out the constraints Ramaphosa faced as Jacob Zuma's deputy, and explain how he ultimately triumphed in the election of the ANC's new president in 2017. The book concludes with an analysis of the challenges Ramaphosa faces as the country's fifth post-apartheid president.

Based on numerous personal conversations with Ramaphosa over the past decade, and on rich interviews with many of the subject's friends and contemporaries, this new biography offers a frank appraisal of one of South Africa's most enigmatic political figures.

In 1909, young William F. Buckley Sr. (1881-1958), who grew up in the dusty South Texas town of San Diego, graduated from the University of Texas law school and headed for Mexico City. Fluent in Spanish, familiar with Mexican traditions, and soon fit to practice law south of the border, Buckley was headed up the aisle to vast wealth and cultural power. On the way, he took a front-row seat at the Mexican Revolution and played a key role in steering the nascent oil industry through tumultuous and dangerous times. This book for the first time tells the story of the man behind the family that would become nothing short of a conservative institution, reaching its apogee in the career of William F. Buckley Jr., arguably the most prominent conservative commentator of the twentieth century. Buckley witnessed the overthrow and exit of President Porfirio DIaz, the rise of Madero, and the coup of General Victoriano Huerta, all while building the Pantepec Oil Company, the most profitable small petroleum producer in Mexico. He faced down Pancho Villa, survived encounters with hired assassins, evaded snipers in the streets of Veracruz, gambled and won in many a business venture-and ultimately was expelled from the country. As the narrative follows Buckley from his small-town Texas beginnings to the founding of a family dynasty, the streak of independence and distrust of government that would become the Buckley hallmark can be seen in the making. An eventful chapter in the life and career of a singular character, this dramatic account of a man and his moment is a document of political and historical significance-but it is also a remarkable story, told with irresistible brio.

Few philosophers are more often referred to and more often misunderstood than Machiavelli. He was truly a product of the Renaissance, and he was as much a revolutionary in the field of political philosophy as Leonardo or Michelangelo were in painting and sculpture. He watched his native Florence lose its independence to the French, thanks to poor leadership from the Medici successors to the great Lorenzo (Il Magnifico). Machiavelli was a keen observer of people, and he spent years studying events and people before writing his famous books. Descended from minor nobility, Machiavelli grew up in a household that was run by a vacillating and incompetent father. He was well educated and smart, and he entered government service as a clerk. He eventually became an important figure in the Florentine state but was defeated by the deposed Medici and Pope Julius II. He was tortured but eventually freed by the restored Medici. No longer employed, he retired to his home to write the books for which he is remembered. Machiavelli had seen the best and the worst of human nature, and he understood how the world operated. He drew his observations from life, and he was appropriately cynical in his writing, given what he had personally experienced. He was an outstanding writer, and his work remains fascinating nearly 500 years later.

For the first time in 400 years, the true story of Pocahontas is revealed by her own people. This important book shares the sacred and previously unpublished oral history of the Mattaponi tribe and their memories of 17th-century Jamestown that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Hundreds of people first attended the first West Indian Carnival held at Seymour Hall, London, in 1959. In this book you will meet some of those pioneers and share closely in their struggle to found a new life.

Few people have made decisions as momentous as Eisenhower, nor has one person had to make such a varied range of them. From D-Day to Little Rock, from the Korean War to Cold War crises, from the Red Scare to the Missile Gap controversies, he was able to give our country eight years of peace and prosperity by relying on a core set of principles. These were informed by his heritage and upbringing, his strong character and his personal discipline, but he also avoided making himself the centre of things. He tried to be the calmest man in the room, not the loudest, so instead of seeking to fulfill his personal desires and political needs, he pursued a course he called the 'Middle Way' that tried to make winners on both sides of a situation. In addition, Ike maintained a big picture view on any situation; he was a strategic, not an operational leader. He also ensured that he had all the information he needed to make a decision. His talent for envisioning a whole, especially in the context of the long game, and his ability to sees causes and various consequences, explains his success as Allied Commander President. Then, after making a decision, he made himself accountable for it, prizing responsibility most of all his principles. How Ike Led shows us not just what a great American did, but why - and what we can learn from him today.