The story of South Africa today is inextricably bound to the life of Jan Hofmeyr. For Hofmeyr represented perhaps the last hope for a liberal policy in government as opposed to the present extremist policies of apartheid. The life of J. H. Hofmeyr had an inner drama that was exciting and unique: there was a strange childhood; a prodigious academic career crowned by a brilliant Oxford record; the principalship of a university at age 24; then the administratorship of the Transvaal at 29; then the political career which makes his biography the story of South Africa today. In Parliament he soon found himself opposed to the prevailing currents of opinion, even within his own party. But he established himself as an incisive, humorous, and sometimes devastating speaker; and, when a Cabinet Minister, as a brilliant administrator. He shouldered a huge burden of work and responsibility particularly during the Second World War when he was acting Prime Minister for long periods while Smuts was in Europe and America. Nationalist Afrikanerdom's sustained attack on Hofmeyr, and his own courageous defence of his Christian, liberal convictions, are among the richest strands in the story of his life. After the war, the hopes of the growing group of liberals in South Africa, among them Al;an Paton himself, became focused on Hofmeyr, either as the successor to Smuts or as the potential leader of a Liberal Party. But he became neither, and in 1948 he died. So a green light went out in the land, making men more conscious of its darkness. It was the light of a man not radiant by nature but by character.. This is truly a great biography but it is so much more than that because it mirrors so well and clearly one of the great tragedies of our world today.