Jan Christiaan Smuts

Born in the Cape Colony in 1870, he rose from a rural farming background to become one of South Africa’s best-known public figures. He studied at Stellenbosch and at Christ’s College, Cambridge, then began a legal and political career that soon drew him into the turbulent politics of southern Africa.

He became prominent as a Boer commander during the South African War, and later entered government in the Union of South Africa. He served twice as prime minister, from 1919 to 1924 and again from 1939 to 1948. Beyond South African politics, he was active on the world stage during and after both world wars and is often remembered for his part in discussions around the League of Nations, the Commonwealth, and the founding period of the United Nations.

He also wrote and thought seriously about philosophy, especially the idea of holism, which gave his work an unusual intellectual side for a political leader. His legacy is complicated: he was admired internationally as a wartime leader and statesman, but his place in South African history is also debated because of the racial politics of his era.