Most books on the history of mission education in South Africa mention Alexander William Roberts only in passing or in a footnote. Keith Snedegar, Professor of World History at Utah Valley University, has taken the trouble to study the rich material contained in Roberts's papers besides that in an impressive number of other collections, and to reconstruct his life's story. The reader is confronted with a life of many contradictions, rich in success and failure. Roberts was born in 1857 in Scotland and migrated as a young man in 1883 to Lovedale College in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa. Lovedale was a school run by the Free Church Mission of Scotland and during Roberts's career as a teacher thousands of young Africans became his students, some of whom became prominent intellectuals like D. D. T. Jabavu and Z. K. Matthews. Although a committed teacher Roberts led a double life. During the nights he observed phenomena in the southern sky which made him a well-known figure in international astronomy. As he approached the end of his teaching career he also retired from astronomy and began a second career as a politician. When he joined the South African Senate, the Native Affairs Commission and other institutions the basic weakness of the old-fashioned liberalism which he represented quickly became apparent. He proved to be something of a turncoat and supported segregationist policies although he privately rejected them. This damaged his prestige among Africans who regarded him as a political failure. Snedegar does not hide his critical attitude and provides a portrait that shows Roberts's weaknesses and limitations. His study is a welcome addition to the complex history of South Africa liberalism, but at least as much a contribution to the history of education and the historiography of knowledge and science.