Purchase
Knopf
April 2014
On Sale: April 15, 2014
680 pages ISBN: 0385532296 EAN: 9780385532297 Kindle: B00G8EKYGC Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction Biography
Here is the first volume of a magisterial biography of
Mohandas Gandhi that gives us the most illuminating portrait
we have had of the life, the work and the historical context
of one of the most abidingly influential—and
controversial—men in modern history.
Ramachandra Guha—hailed by Time as “Indian
democracy’s preeminent chronicler”—takes us from Gandhi’s
birth in 1869 through his upbringing in Gujarat, his two
years as a student in London and his two decades as a lawyer
and community organizer in South Africa. Guha has uncovered
myriad previously untapped documents, including private
papers of Gandhi’s contemporaries and co-workers;
contemporary newspapers and court documents; the writings of
Gandhi’s children; and secret files kept by British Empire
functionaries. Using this wealth of material in an
exuberant, brilliantly nuanced and detailed narrative, Guha
describes the social, political and personal worlds inside
of which Gandhi began the journey that would earn him the
honorific Mahatma: “Great Soul.” And, more clearly than ever
before, he elucidates how Gandhi’s work in South Africa—far
from being a mere prelude to his accomplishments in
India—was profoundly influential in his evolution as a
family man, political thinker, social reformer and,
ultimately, beloved leader.
In 1893, when Gandhi set sail for South Africa, he was a
twenty-three-year-old lawyer who had failed to establish
himself in India. In this remarkable biography, the author
makes clear the fundamental ways in which Gandhi’s ideas
were shaped before his return to India in 1915. It was
during his years in England and South Africa, Guha shows us,
that Gandhi came to understand the nature of imperialism and
racism; and in South Africa that he forged the philosophy
and techniques that would undermine and eventually overthrow
the British Raj.
Gandhi Before India gives us equally vivid portraits
of the man and the world he lived in: a world of sharp
contrasts among the coastal culture of his birthplace, High
Victorian London, and colonial South Africa. It explores in
abundant detail Gandhi’s experiments with dissident cults
such as the Tolstoyans; his friendships with radical Jews,
heterodox Christians and devout Muslims; his enmities and
rivalries; and his often overlooked failures as a husband
and father. It tells the dramatic, profoundly moving story
of how Gandhi inspired the devotion of thousands of
followers in South Africa as he mobilized a cross-class and
inter-religious coalition, pledged to non-violence in their
battle against a brutally racist regime.
Researched with unequaled depth and breadth, and written
with extraordinary grace and clarity, Gandhi Before
India is, on every level, fully commensurate with its
subject. It will radically alter our understanding and
appreciation of twentieth-century India’s greatest man.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|