Gandhi Before India Paperback – 2 Oct 2014

Review

This book will be of enormous interest to readers interested in how law, politics, journalism, social activism and associated professions interact in the processes of social and political change ... One senses, in the author's approach, something of Gandhi's own intensity and rigour ... this book never ceases to inform and intrigue, from the charming preface in which the author's love of his subject shines through, to its prophetic conclusion ... In Ramachandra Guha, a great man has found a great biographer, a wise, persistent and elegant historian who has done justice to perhaps his nation's greatest story (Sydney Morning Herald)

Excellent and exhaustive ... Guha has done heroic work in reconstructing this period of Gandhi's life ... Gandhi emerges here as a fascinatingly complicated and contradictory figure ... if the sequel proves as rich and absorbing as this first book, it will doubtless serve as the fundamental portrait of Gandhi for many years to come (Sunday Business Post)

Guha's Gandhi Before India is a whale of a book. It is unique. No one has written so comprehensively on Gandhi's early years ... a great historian ... Guha's book is a classic (Mail Today, New Delhi)

What can a new biographer add? Gandhi Before India by Ramachandra Guha, India's leading historian, offers plenty ... Rather than lingering on Gandhi's own well-studied words, Mr Guha has unearthed a wealth of previously overlooked school reports, diaries, letters and articles by collaborators and opponents of Gandhi. The result is a striking depiction of his transformation into mid-adulthood ... As Mr Guha ably shows, for all that Gandhi influenced events in South Africa, it was he who experienced the greater change (Economist)

One of the surprises in Gandhi Before India is just how much fresh material it contains. Guha has a gift for tracking down obscure letters and newspaper reports and patching them together to make history come alive ... The book turns up some gems ... Gandhi Before India demonstrates how complicated cross-cultural relations were in the long 19th century ... it is a work of vivid social history as well as biography (Patrick French Guardian)

Guha is India's best-known historian, who marshals his wide scholarship in contemporary and modern history with a raconteur's lucid felicity (DNA Mumbai)

A spirited case for Gandhi's continued relevance, for the challenges his ideas still present to us (Tehelka, New Delhi)

Guha is one of India's most intelligent and readable historians; and in addition to his considerable talents, he has had the good fortune to discover a treasure trove of Gandhi's own voluminous press cuttings and also many shelf-loads of letters to him from friends and colleagues (Standpoint)

Many will come to this biography wanting to know more about Gandhi himself - his character, the details of his famously ascetic lifestyle and his relations with his family, which were not ideal ... Guha relates all this wonderfully ... [the] book is clearly a labour of love, though not of uncritical infatuation. What distinguishes it is the breadth of the context - Indian, British and South African ... Guha marshals his material sensitively and empathetically in order to give shape, colour and depth to the life of this saint-like figure (but how much more fascinating than any conventional saint) (Literary Review) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Ramachandra Guha is one of India's most influential historians and public intellectuals. His books include A Corner of a Foreign Field and India After Gandhi. Time magazine has said he is 'Indian democracy's pre-eminent chronicler'. He has held visiting professorships at Stanford, Yale and the London School of Economics. He lives in Bangalore.