Synopses & Reviews
Throughout his long and turbulent career as a political leader, first in South Africa and then in India, Gandhi sought to fulfil his religious aspirations through politics and to reconcile politics with personal religious conviction. But Gandhi’s religion was wildly divergent from anything to have taken root in his native India. Foremost among his private tenets was the belief that he was a world saviour, long prophesied and potentially divine.
Penetrating and provocative, Kathryn Tidrick’s book draws on neglected material to explore the paradoxes within Gandhi’s life and personality. She reveals a man whose spiritual ideas originated not in India, but in the drawing rooms of late-Victorian England, and which included some very eccentric and damaging notions about sex. The resulting portrait is complex, convincing and, to anyone interested in the legacy of colonialism, more enlightening than any previously published.
The Gandhi revealed here is not the secular saint of popular renown, but a difficult and self-obsessed man driven by a messianic sense of personal destiny.
Review
"A fine and engaging biography ... His ideas remain very relevant in understanding the problems that plague the contemporary world." Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor at Harvard and Nobel Prize winner
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Brilliant." William Dalrymple
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Fair and balanced." Sunday Times
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"Exhaustively researched ... Gandhi emerges from Tidrick’s detailed and balanced biography as a man with his full share of flaws, contradictions and oddities, but with more than a streak of genuine holiness." Tablet
Synopsis
A major reinterpretation of Gandhi’s life, politics, religion and nation
Synopsis
Throughout his long and turbulent career as an Indian leader, first in South Africa and then in India, Gandhi sought to fulfill his religious aspirations through politics, and to reconcile politics with his private religious discipline. The Gandhi revealed here is not the secular saint of popular renown, but a difficult and self-obsessed man driven by a sense of unique personal destiny.
Penetrating and provocative, Tidrick draws on material previously ignored by Gandhi's biographers and explores the paradoxes within his life and beliefs. Did the nationalist leader truly believe that he was not just fighting for Indian independence but also global enlightenment? Gandhi never admitted his early influences and experiences, but how important were the more esoteric ideas he first encountered in the West?
About the Author
Kathryn Tidrick is the author of the highly regarded Heart Beguiling Araby: The English Romance with Arabia and Empire and the English Character.