Abstract

Philosopher and Statesman

The article focuses on the book "General Smuts," by Sarah Gertrude Millin. With this second volume Millin completes her biography of one of the most influential figures in a major crisis of human history. She believes South African general Jan Christiaan Smuts is a very great man, yet she preserves an admirably impartial attitude toward him. His character, she says, is difficult, complex, and contradictory. His platitudes jostle his profundities. His cynicism laughs at his idealism. He is dependable and also incalculable. This miscalled handyman of empire, who fought the English in the Boer War, came tremendously to their aid in the World War, and, refusing a brilliant career in post-war England, returned home to face a half-hostile South Africa, has been as extravagantly vilified as praised.