In this sequel to Towards the Mountain, South African writer Paton describes the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 in which 69 protesters were killed, many shot in the back. But Paton, who died last April, concludes that H.F. Verwoerd, architect of apartheid, was not an evil man, merely arrogant and self-deluded. This straightforward memoir by the author of Cry, the Beloved Country starts in 1948 with the Afrikan Nationalist Party's seizure of power. Chronicling government harassment, torture and the passage of racial laws, Paton follows the Nationalists' tightening death-grip on a country "living on the slopes of a volcano." He writes in detail about the Liberal Party, of which he was founder and leader, defending it against critics who charge that it weakened the true opposition. Paton's testimony at the 1964 trial of Nelson Mandela, and his account of the Treason Trial (1956-61) in which hundreds of dissenters were arrested, are high points in this reenactment of his public life.