The political climate in South Africa when the Rivonia trial began in November 1963 was so poisonous that Joel Joffe, then a young lawyer, took the case on only because he had already decided to emigrate. Two years later, he wrote up his lively insider's view of the trial and allowed Lionel Bernstein, the only defendant to get off, to rewrite it to the point of virtual co-authorship. It was published somewhat obscurely in 1990 and is now reissued for the wider audience it deserves. Rivonia was the moment at which the African National Congress, having opted for armed revolt (a foolish decision, though one with which, as a young South African, I was wholly in sympathy), collided head-on with an Afrikaner nationalism still at its muscular zenith. The result was that Nelson Mandela and seven of his co-defendants were sent to jail for life - between 22 and 27 years, as it turned out.

LRB 16 August 2007 | PDF Download