Glimpses of a Global Life

Shridath Ramphal looks at his fifteen years at the centre of international conflicts as the Commonwealth Secretary-General.

Shridath Sonny Ramphal has lived a long and global life. A lawyer and international diplomat, he rose from humble origins to become a key Advisor to Queen Elizabeth II as Head of the Commonwealth. Leaders from every continent engaged with him as the longest serving Secretary-General of the Commonwealth (1975-1990) and as the only person who served on all the Independent International Commissions that grappled with the world’s major issues.

Glimpses of a Global Life involves a cast of the world’s leading characters and the central role Ramphal played alongside them in issues such as ending the apartheid in South Africa; laying the foundations for global concerns about the environment; the reform of global governance, and the resolution of conflicts. It is an analysis of major problems and challenges that dominated the twentieth century and which continue to shape the contours of the twenty-first.