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.

Gandhi's is an extraordinary and compelling story. Few individuals in history 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. His 'power' therefore makes a particularly fascinating subject for investigation. David Arnold explains how and why the shy student and affluent lawyer became one of the most powerful anti-colonial figures Western empires in Asia ever faced and why he aroused such intense affection, loyalty (and at times much bitter hatred) among Indians and Westerners alike. Attaching as much influence to the idea and image of Gandhi as to the man himself, Arnold sees Gandhi not just as a Hindu saint but as a colonial subject, whose attitudes and experiences expressed much that was common to countless others in India and elsewhere who sought to grapple with the overwhelming power and cultural authority of the West.

A vivid and highly readable introducation to Gandhi's life and times, Arnold's book opens up fascinating insights into one of the twentieth century's most remarkable men.

David Arnold is professor of South Asian History, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.