Mohandas Gandhi

School Library Journal

Gr 6-10-This largely chronological overview provides some insight into the roots of Gandhi's beliefs in nonviolence and nonpossession, and his customary strategies such as fasting, civil disobedience, and turning the other cheek. Focusing on the subject's struggle for the rights of Indians in South Africa and for Indian independence from Great Britain, Martin gives less emphasis to opposition to the caste system and concern for the untouchables. In addition, he all but ignores Gandhi's antimodernism, interpreting his advocacy of the spinning wheel and homespun cloth simply as anti-British symbols. Occasional period black-and-white photographs and subheadings break up the text. Source notes attribute the direct quotations; no attribution is given for the things Gandhi is said to have thought or felt. A selected bibliography includes his writings as well as secondary sources. Most of the places named appear on the map of India in the late 1800s and the inset map showing India and Pakistan after 1947, but there is no map of South Africa where much of the action of this book takes place. The glossary does not include the word Mazdaism (Zoroastrianism) although other religions are defined. Back matter includes a brief epilogue pointing out the influence of Gandhi's teaching. While written in rather pedestrian prose, this title is more useful and accessible than Ann Malaspina's Mahatma Gandhi and India's Independence in World History (Enslow, 2000).-Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.