Friday, August 24, 2012

Top ten books on heroes

Don Mullan is the author of Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, a book critical in reopening the British government's inquiry (over 25 years later) into what became known as Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday was January 30, 1972, a day when thirteen civilians were killed by British soldiers during a civil rights march in North Ireland.

Paul Greengrass, perhaps better known to Americans as the director of The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and United 93 (2006), made a film (co-produced by Mullan) titled Bloody Sunday (2002) about those events.

In 2006 Mullan named his top ten books on heroes for The Guardian, including:
Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

On May 10 1994, together with a friend from Ireland, I was swept along by a tidal wave of humanity into the grounds of Union Buildings, Pretoria, for Nelson Mandela's inauguration as President of the Democratic Republic of South Africa. His autobiography tells the story of the institutional racist brutality that failed to break the spirit of a nation. Amazingly, a man who during the Thatcher/Regan era was officially considered a terrorist presided over a miraculously peaceful transition of power. Mandela is, and will forever remain, the beacon of all Africa and a source of inspiration for the earth's most abused and exploited continent.
Read about the other titles on the list.

Long Walk to Freedom is one of Sammy Perlmutter's five best books from Nobel winners who didn't win their medal for literature.

--Marshal Zeringue