- Hardcover: 312 pages
- Publisher: Phaidon Press Ltd; illustrated edition edition (6 Sep 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 071484103X
- ISBN-13: 978-0714841038
- Product Dimensions: 24.8 x 24.2 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,151,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Mahatma Gandhi is the perfect subject for Peter Rühe's impressive pictorial biography Gandhi. Not only was Mahatma Gandhi a consciously humble, compassionate man of principle, prepared to die for his lifelong belief in Satyagraha, or non-violent protest, he was also powerfully photogenic. Rühe has been a Gandhi specialist and visual archivist for nearly 20 years and has compiled his gallery mostly from the vast collections of Kanu Gandhi, a great-nephew, and Vithalbhai Jhaveri, former member of the Indian National Movement. After studying law in England, Gandhi spent two decades in South Africa, where he trained for the rest of his life, his activism fully ignited by the Black Act of 1906, forcing Indians to register. From 1921, the familiar visual identity starts to emerge: lean, bespectacled and unblinking, head shaved, and clad in loincloth and chaddar (a sheet worn as a wrap), in response to the Foreign Cloth Boycott. Influenced by Western writers such as John Ruskin, Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy, he became deeply pained by the impotence of his teachings in the face of Nazi slaughter of the Jews, but India, and its Purna Swaraj, remained his true passion. However, when independence came, on 14 August 1947, he only saw failure with the establishment of independent states of India and Pakistan, and the religious violence that ensued.
Aside from the wonderful historical photography of the Salt March of 1930, his rallies where the audience disappears into the horizon, and his constantly frail, often fasting, physical state, the most poignant selections show Gandhi adhering to the simple life he espoused: eating, shaving, spinning, travelling and speaking, or with unbearable pathos, watching over his dead wife's body. Quirky gems include meeting Charlie Chaplin in London's East End, giving a "silent message" on his habitual day of silence to reporters who busily seem to scribble it down, and, after his assassination, his funeral procession being given, with grim irony, a military salute. While Louis Fischer's The Life of Mahatma Gandhi provides an authoritative, contextualised analysis, Gandhi frames his extraordinary life with a simplicity and warmth that goes some way to explaining the reverence he inspired, and why, when he died, Nehru spoke not just for India in lamenting that "the light has gone out of our lives". --David Vincent
The Sunday Times Magazine, September 9, 2001
This book allows us an intimate insight into the life of one of the 20th century's great figures.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I have read many books about, and by M K Gandhi and what was lacking, for me, was what Ruhe has brought to us - a fantastic pictorial history. I saw the book advertised in a yoga magazine and I couldn't wait to get online to order it from Amazon. The book is wonderful. Ruhe's love of, and dedication to Gandhi shines through this book and I wasn't disappointed. I found the book very inspiring and moving. It helped to consolidate all that I have read about Gandhi. Otherwise, my image of Gandhi would have remained as a man in a loin cloth with glasses and a shaven head. The pictures of his younger days are a joy to see. If you also love Gandhi and his ideals then I recommend that you buy this book and keep it close to hand. You'll never grow tired of it. If anything, it will inspire you and make you want to find out more about him. It would also be an excellent choice for a school, college or university library. For me, the book brought Bapu to life and if I could praise Ruhe in person, I would.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A picture equals thousand words. In this collection of rare photographs of a rare individual history of an idea unfolds.It is also a window into British India at its last stages. Book itself is tastefully produced and photographs are of excellent quality. I strongly recommend this book.
Gandhi's letter to Hitler is poignant, particularly in the light of recent developments in the world where war is looming large.
Gandhi's letter to Hitler is poignant, particularly in the light of recent developments in the world where war is looming large.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
This is a difficult book to read.
18 Dec 2001
Format:Hardcover
This is a difficult book to read.
It is a difficult read, not because of the historical writing of Peter Ruhe, who has done a commendable job, nor because of the photo editing by Sophie Spencer-Wood, a top rate job indeed; but because the publisher, Phaidon Press, choose to print the text using a very small type with a recessive color using glossy paper. Sad, especially when you open to the text section and see there are 2 ½" top, 2 ½" left and 1 ½" bottom margins. Go figure. To make the matter worse under each photo caption, the publisher uses an even smaller type and in a tan color.
Phaidon Press failed to consider that the audience most likely to buy to this book, will be, by majority, mid-aged or older. Thus, they, like me, probably will need reading glasses. However, even with good reading glasses, the smallness of type, the faded black ink (on the verge of gray) and the glaring glossy paper made reading this book very strenuous and difficult.
That said, I found Peter Ruhe's writing balanced and refreshing. He chronologically lays out Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's life in an engaging, investigative manner. Ruhe is an admirer of Mahatma but not enamored enough to be a blind devote. He points out the times that Gandhi's belief in satyagraha (truth-force) blinded him. One such time, related to the evil of Nazi Germany, "Gandhi insisted that Hitler was merely misguided. In his mind the German leader could be dissuaded from further conquest by the power of reason or, if necessary, satyagraha". Though Gandhi had achieved mystical status, to Ruhe he was still a man, although, one of the world's greatest.
The 400 Black and White photos curated by Sophie Spencer-Wood are excellent They illustrate the time line of this great man's life. The reproduction of the photos is top rate, and this alone makes the book a worthy addition to any Mahatma Gandhi collection. Gandhi's body was cremated, January 31. 1948. The words of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, eulogize Gandhi even today, "the light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere, our beloved leader... the father of the Nation is no more." Recommended
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Magnificent!
4 Jan 2002
Format:Hardcover
This book is an amazing compilation of photographs, in chronological order, telling you about the life and philosophy of Gandhi. The pictures tell the story themselves and help you get a feeling of how things really were and the true magnitude of the movement for an independent India.
Photographs of Mahatma Gandhi...
30 Jun 2002
Format:Hardcover
Excellent book, the photo-biography on Mahatma Gandhi the Father of India was a real pleasure to read and a wonderful account of his life told in pictures. One forgets that Mahatma Gandhi wanted India to be one nation-state and not divided into India and Pakistan, it was Nehru, Jinnah and the British that separated India. Granted there would have been problems, but they would have been under one nation-state and not two as there is between India and Pakistan today...
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