Gandhi Before India, Ramachandra Guha
Gandhi Before India, Ramachandra Guha
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Gandhi Before India

Author: Ramachandra Guha

Narrator: Derek Perkins

Unabridged: 23 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/31/2018


Synopsis

Ramachandra Guha—hailed by Time as "Indian democracy's preeminent chronicler"—takes us from Gandhi's birth in 1869 through his upbringing in Gujarat, his two years as a student in London and his two decades as a lawyer and community organizer in South Africa. Guha has uncovered myriad previously untapped documents, including private papers of Gandhi's contemporaries and coworkers; contemporary newspapers and court documents; the writings of Gandhi's children; and secret files kept by British Empire functionaries. Using this wealth of material in an exuberant, brilliantly nuanced and detailed narrative, Guha describes the social, political and personal worlds inside of which Gandhi began the journey that would earn him the honorific Mahatma: "Great Soul." And, more clearly than ever before, he elucidates how Gandhi's work in South Africa—far from being a mere prelude to his accomplishments in India—was profoundly influential in his evolution as a family man, political thinker, social reformer and, ultimately, beloved leader.

Researched with unequaled depth and breadth, and written with extraordinary grace and clarity, Gandhi Before India will radically alter our understanding and appreciation of twentieth-century India's greatest man.

About Ramachandra Guha

Ramachandra Guha has taught at Yale and Stanford universities, the University of Oslo, the Indian Institute of Science, and the London School of Economics. His books include the award-winning India After Gandhi, and the first volume of this biography, Gandhi Before India, which was a 2014 New York Times Notable Book and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year. He writes regularly on social and political issues for the New York Times, and for the British and Indian presses, including the Telegraph and the Hindustan Times. He lives in Bangalore, India.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lubinka on March 10, 2019

I suppose I belong to the kind of audience to which Ramachandra Guha refers at the beginning of his book – people whose image of Gandhi is more or less limited to some basic knowledge, partially influenced by his depiction in the Ben Kingsley movie. Many have virtually no idea that Gandhi spent a hu......more

Goodreads review by Marks54 on March 12, 2019

This is the first volume of a two volume biography of Gandhi. It features Gandhi in a 20 plus year career as a “community organizer” leading the fight against racial codes in South Africa - with some significant success. This is where Gandhi developed his ideas of passive resistance (satyagraha) whe......more

Goodreads review by Eunice on February 09, 2014

A great start to the year with two wonderful works of non-fiction by two authors who I am privileged to have met. Indeed they both lunched in our house in Chennai on the same day. William Dalrymple's masterly Return of a King I have already reviewed. Ram Guha's Gandhi before India is also a beautifu......more

Goodreads review by Vikas on May 07, 2019

Unlike few of the people I know I still don't feel like giving up on Gandhi and his philosophies. After all as a proud Indian Gandhiji has been father of our nation. The face we see on every note and it every official place. I must have seen the 1982 movies more than 4 times and yet despite reading......more

Goodreads review by S.Ach on December 18, 2020

Had Guha decided to write one instead of two volumes of Gandhi's biography, the content of this book would have shrunk to 3-4 chapters, not more than 100 pages in that. But, Guha decided to write two volumes instead of one, probably because the title appealed him more to work on this project - 'Gand......more