He does an excellent job of dealing with the large subjects and with a wide range of characters . . . Pogrund was a witness to many important events and knew almost all the crucial players in South African history from 1958 to the present . . . He ably describes the struggle to run a paper championing human decency and the rule of law . . . Lukacs traces wine's history in the United States from the 18th-century Spanish missionaries in California through its prominence on wine lists at upscale restaurants . . . An important account of the international response to the crisis.
Major articles remain painstaking, long and full. . . .
More ecumenical, and a bit more user-friendly . . . An amalgam of the necessary and the exotic. The narrative goes into the epic mode too often, and the prose, while lazily reaching out for the ready-made phrase, often comes dangerously close to kitsch. . . . Ideas as well as dramatic situations often feel hastily imposed from above. His characters prefer the cockpit, where sensory input is limited . . .