Gandhi Before India

Gandhi Before India

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 influentialâ€”and controversialâ€”men in modern history.
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Ramachandra Guhaâ€”hailed by Time as â€œIndian democracyâ€™s preeminent chroniclerâ€â€”takes us from Gandhiâ€™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 Gandhiâ€™s contemporaries and co-workers; contemporary newspapers and court documents; the writings of Gandhiâ€™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: â€œGreat Soul.â€ And, more clearly than ever before, he elucidates how Gandhiâ€™s work in South Africaâ€”far from being a mere prelude to his accomplishments in Indiaâ€”was profoundly influential in his evolution as a family man, political thinker, social reformer and, ultimately, beloved leader.
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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 Gandhiâ€™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.
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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 Gandhiâ€™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.
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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 Indiaâ€™s greatest man.
Country USA
Manufacturer Knopf
Binding Hardcover
ReleaseDate 2014-04-15
UnitCount 1
Format Deckle Edge
EANs 9780385532297

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Knopf
Binding	Hardcover
ReleaseDate	2014-04-15
UnitCount	1
Format	Deckle Edge
EANs	9780385532297

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