As a former medical doctor in Soweto, and later a reverend close to bishop Desmond Tutu, Liz Carmichael is eminently suited to guide the readers through the transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa from 1990 to 1994. Her book serves as a supplement and a corrective to the more familiar story of a South African ’miracle’ with Mandela and de Klerk as towering figures and national saviours. She argues convincingly  that the breakdown in the negotiations between the ANC and the National Party in April 1991 would have led to a disastrous collapse if churches, major corporations, grassroot organisations and highly respected academics had not initiated a peace process leading to the National Peace Accord (NPA) and the emergence of grassroot peace committees. The message is clear: Peacemaking and peacebuilding must be grounded in wider civil society to succeed and to inspire others. The importance of the book lies mainly in its detailed record of what was taking place within the NPA and its associated civil society committees, based on an impressive combing of often deficient archives, interviews with a wide range of actors and her own participation representing Desmond Tutu’s diocese. No other academic studies, and certainly not the hagiographic biographies of Mandela and de Klerk, cover the same ground. The book is highly recommended. With its explicit focus on the political aspects of the transitional period and the role played by other actors than the Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Carmichael has succeeded in filling a huge gap. But readers interested in socio-economic issues and the reasons for the continued presence of a system based on racial capitalism, must look elsewhere.