Dimensions
162 x 240 x 45mm
The life of Mohandas Gandhi is one of the most remarkable and potent in the modern era. The 20th century seemed to be dominated by dictators and a ferocious militarism, yet what has proved far more significant - whether in ending racism and imperialism, or in the Arab Spring - is the legacy of a lawyer from a small town in western India who never held a weapon or governed a state.
In this fascinating new biography Ramachandra Guha allows us to understand the personality and politics of Mohandas Gandhi as never before. His key argument is that Gandhi's ideas were fundamentally shaped before his return to India in 1915. His formative years were spent in England and South Africa, where he developed the techniques that would undermine and ultimately destroy the British Empire.
Gandhi Before India is extraordinarily vivid as a portrait both of Gandhi and of the world he lived in, a world of sharp contrasts between the coastal culture of Gujarat, High Victorian London and colonial South Africa, where settlers from India, Britain and elsewhere battled for their share of this rich and newly despoiled land. It was his experiences in Natal and the Transvaal that made Gandhi great. As the iron framework of the South African racial state was fixed into place, Gandhi mobilized a popular movement pledged to cultural pluralism and non-violence. Among his devoted followers were Muslim merchants, Hindu labourers, heterodox Christians and radical Jews.
Drawing on many new sources located in archives across four continents, Gandhi Before India is beautifully written, sensitively exploring the many facets of his subject's life and struggles. This is the biography of the year.
