South Africa was once a land of apartheid and the deepest racial oppression. In April 1994, a new, democratic, and free South Africa was born. To build a new South Africa, the government had to face problems left over from the past, remove racial hatred, and achieve national reconciliation. This book explains why South Africa, at a critical moment of social change, chose to forego the options of the Nuremberg trials and “national amnesia,” in favor of a third way, namely exchanging amnesty for the truth to achieve reconciliation between perpetrators and victims.