--YD
Posted on 12/03/2008 12:54:24 PM PST by yankeedame
Hey gang,
I need some suggestions for a book on the real Mahama Gandhi. I've read two or three books on the British Raj over the course of years, but have yet to read a bio of Gandhi. Needless to say I don't want to get stuck with some fawning dribble.
Thanks!
Your fellow bookworm,
--YD
Never heard of her.
I’m smack in the middle of this one, and am enjoying it:
http://www.amazon.com/Gandhi-Churchill-Rivalry-Destroyed-Empire/dp/0553804634
Good question. I’ll be interested in the answer, too.
I read an alternative-history story once where the Nazis and Japanese had taken over India in WW2, and the whole non-violent resistance got themselves machine-gunned.
Free Book Search (Find books that are free)
If you mean Mahatma Gandhi, read his own writings. Then you will find out what a creepy creature he was, not worthy of historical note except for the cruelty and abuse that he heaped upon his wife.
Years ago, I read ‘The Yogi and the Commissar’ by Arthur Koestler. It has quite a bit about Gandhi, the ‘yogi’ in the book. In case you don’t know about Koestler, he was a former Communist who became an anti-Communist. His most notworthy work is ‘Darkness at Noon.’
I wonder if Hillary will be spouting gaffes like that one when she becomes Secretary of State.
For Gandhi, truth was the sovereign principle; inclusive of many other spiritual principles and schools of thought.
"[I]t is not my purpose to attempt a real autobiography. I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments, it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography...", he adds in the introduction. And hence the title My Experiments with Truth. However, he further notes that "... [the experiments] will of course include experiments with non-violence, celibacy and other principles of conduct believed to be distinct from truth."
In this autobiography, Gandhi has recounted the period from his birth (1869) up to the year 1921. In the last chapter, he notes, "My life from this point onward has been so public that there is hardly anything about it that people do not know..."
[..]
The only English translation of The Story of My Experiments with Truth was done by Gandhi's friend and assistant Mahadev Desai. By modern standards Desai's translation is flowery and liberal, turning passages such as "Everyone should fast and stop work" into "Let all the people of India, therefore, suspend their business on that day and observe the day as one of fasting and prayer." It also bowdlerises the original in places.
The author traveled around India and talked with people who had actually known Gandhi and went to places where he had lived, while weaving in the history of his life. The book is not even all that long but it seemed to give a very well-rounded picture of its subject. I did not find it to be noticeably biased one way or the other.
One thing I found very interesting was the amount of effort Gandhi put into exhorting Indian villagers to improve the level of common sanitation. The book also discusses how Gandhi would urge his newlywed followers to remain celibate while he himself tested his commitment to celibacy with so-called "Brahmacharya experiments".
(By the way the book I bought had a much nicer cover than the one currently displayed on Amazon. Don't be put off by that because it really is a good book.)
Currently out of print on Amazon. Might find it in used bookstores.
Excellent read that explores the human side of the man, as opposed to the fawning reviews that we all know.
Completes the picture well.
LOL! Thank you...I know I need it!
Any suggestions from the Book Club?
...and Sir Edmund Hillary.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=&amode=words&title=gandhi&tmode=words
An Atheist With Gandhi, by Gora (HTML at positiveatheism.org)
Friends of Gandhi: Correspondence of Mahatma Gandhi with Esther Faering (Menon), Anne Marie Petersen and Ellen Hørup, by Mahatma Gandhi, Ellen Hørup, Esther Faering Menon, and Anne Marie Petersen, ed. by E. S. Reddy and Holger Terp (PDF in Denmark)
A Gandhi Anthology, by Mahatma Gandhi, ed. by Valaji Govindaji Desai
volume I: HTML at mahatma.org.in
volume II: HTML at mahatma.org.in
Gandhi: The Meaning of Mahatma for the Millennium, ed. by Kuruvila Pandikattu (HTML at crvp.org)
Gandhi Today: A Report on Mahatma Gandhi’s Successors, by Mark Shepard (PDF at markshep.com)
The Gita According to Gandhi, ed. by Mahadev H. Desai, contrib. by Mahatma Gandhi (HTML at AOL)
Mahatma Gandhi and His Myths, by Mark Shepard (HTML at markshep.com)
Mohan-Mala (A Gandhian Rosary): Being a Thought for Each Day of the Year Gleaned from the Writings and Teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, by Mahatma Gandhi, ed. by Ramachandra Krishna Prabhu (HTML at mahatma.org.in)
South Africa’s Freedom Struggle: Statements, Speeches, and Articles Including Correspondence With Mahatma Gandhi, by Yusuf Mohamed Dadoo, ed. by E. S. Reddy (HTML in South Africa)
The Words of Gandhi, by Mahatma Gandhi, ed. by Richard Attenborough (HTML at mahatma.org.in)
10 items were found.
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Hapepns to teh bset of us.
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