 Africa Spectrum 3/2016: 140–143  Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu and Miranda Strydom (eds) (2016), The Thabo Mbeki I Know, Johannesburg: Pan Macmillan South Africa, ISBN 9781770103412; ebook: ISBN 9781770103429, 576 pp. In these dog days of the Zuma presidency, when the incumbent’s pa- tronage network seems bent on looting the state as much as it can and as quickly as possible, it is easy to look back with nostalgia on the years in power of Thabo Mbeki. Helen Zille (former leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance) has nominated vision, integrity, and courage as the most important qualities of a political leader. Zuma manifestly lacks the first two of these, even if he may lay some claim to the third (accom- panied by a very large dose of stubbornness). In contrast, Thabo Mbeki, it can be argued, possessed all three qualities. This does not mean that his presidency was untarnished by significant flaws – there is a strong case for arguing that in many ways the foundations of good governance in South Africa (notably, the separation of powers and the separation of the ruling party from state institutions) were seriously undermined dur- ing his tenure of office. Nonetheless, it is fair to argue that Mbeki always had a clear idea (during the struggle years, the transition, and the early years of African National Congress [ANC] rule) of where South Africa should be headed; likewise, although many questions about the notorious 1998 arms deal remain unanswered, there is no evidence from this affair or any other that Mbeki misused his power for personal gain (even if we may speculate that he must have been aware of the growth of rent seek- ing within public service). Additionally, whether we agree with it or not, few can doubt the courage it took to turn a highly indebted economy around, via the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strat- egy, in the face of strident opposition from many within the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). These ruminations go beyond the scope of The Thabo Mbeki I Know, edited by Sifiso Ndlovu and Miranda Strydom. Nonetheless, they flow easily from it, not only because of the intellectually self-confident per- sonality which Mbeki brought to the presidency, but because of the de- structive nature of Zuma’s rule. Fundamentally, this collection of essays by some 46 contributors (including, rather oddly, two forewords, by Barney Afako and Mahmood Mamdani, respectively) constitutes a col- lective praise-song, designed to burnish the memory of a president whose term of office was so brutally, and so unnecessarily, cut short by a triumphant majority within the ANC on the basis of a highly dubious court judgement (which, we should recall, was to be overturned soon