Gandhi's Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi

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Oxford University Press, 2002 M11 28 - 336 pages
More than half a century after his death, Mahatma Gandhi continues to inspire millions throughout the world. Yet modern India, most strikingly in its decision to join the nuclear arms race, seems to have abandoned much of his nonviolent vision. Inspired by recent events in India, Stanley Wolpert offers this subtle and profound biography of India's "Great Soul." Wolpert compellingly chronicles the life of Mahatma Gandhi from his early days as a child of privilege to his humble rise to power and his assassination at the hands of a man of his own faith. This trajectory, like that of Christ, was the result of Gandhi's passion: his conscious courting of suffering as the means to reach divine truth. From his early campaigns to stop discrimination in South Africa to his leadership of a people's revolution to end the British imperial domination of India, Gandhi emerges as a man of inner conflicts obscured by his political genius and moral vision. Influenced early on by nonviolent teachings in Hinduism, Jainism, Christianity, and Buddhism, he came to insist on the primacy of love for one's adversary in any conflict as the invincible power for change. His unyielding opposition to intolerance and oppression would inspire India like no leader since the Buddha--creating a legacy that would encourage Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and other global leaders to demand a better world through peaceful civil disobedience. By boldly considering Gandhi the man, rather than the living god depicted by his disciples, Wolpert provides an unprecedented representation of Gandhi's personality and the profound complexities that compelled his actions and brought freedom to India.
 

Contents

Preface Introduction
Midnight in Calcutta
Dawn in Gujarat
The Impact of Victorian London
Brief Interlude at Home
Early Traumas and Triumphs in South Africa
Between Two Worlds
Satyagraha in South Africa
Imprisoned Soul of India
Return to Rural Uplift Work
Prelude to War and Partition
War and Peaceful Resistance
War behind Bars
No Peace
Walking Alone
Freedoms Wooden Loaf

Victory through Suffering
The Impact of World War I
Postwar Carnage and Nationwide Satyagraha
Cotton Spinning
Rising of the Poison
The Road Back to Satyagraha
The Salt March and Prison Aftermath
From Prison to London and Back
Great Souls Death in Delhi
His Indian Legacy
His Global Legacy
Notes
6
Select Bibliography
94
Index
100
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About the author (2002)

Stanley Wolpert is Distinguished Professor of South Asian History Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has published twenty books on South Asia, including Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny, A New History of India, and Jinnah of Pakistan.

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