Gandhi

Few individuals have made so great a mark upon their times, and yet Gandhi never held high political office, commanded no armies and was not even a compelling orator. How then can his power be explained? How and why did the shy student and affluent lawyer come to challenge a Western empire?

David Arnold¿s fascinating profile tracks ¿Mahatma¿ Gandhi¿s influence and image over more than forty years of public life:

• the struggle for the rights of Indians in South Africa which pitched him against white racism

• Gandhi¿s techniques of non-cooperation and civil disobedience to drive out the British and wrest India's freedom

• his ascendancy over the British, the Salt March of 1930, his unique appeal as both Hindu saint and ordinary colonial subject

• why India¿s independence in 1947, and violent partition, was not the freedom for which Gandhi had struggled

• Gandhi¿s bitter disillusionment before his assassination in January 1948

In leading India to independence, Gandhi also contributed uniquely to British political life and to the eventual dissolution of a worldwide Empire. This is a vivid introduction to his life and times.

DAVID ARNOLD is Professor of South Asian History at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London.

Author(s): David Arnold  

ISBN 10: 0582319781
ISBN 13: 9780582319783
Pages: 288