Author Description

The name of Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most widely recognized in the world. His Autobiography has been translated into all the major languages, and has been continuously in print since it was published. Together with the popularity of the film Gandhi, and the debate over the film, this figure has come to fire the imagination as few people do. Yet, very little is known about Gandhi. Regarding the inner life and personal relationships, far less is known about him than about scores of lesser figures. This biography redresses the situation. In the process, it examines many aspects of Gandhi's development not hitherto covered. For example, in the first half of his life Gandhi suffered from a debilitating shyness. Up to the age of twenty-five he looked like a loser. In his middle and later years he was recurrently in contact with the man who would inspire his assassination. All of this gives Gandhi's life a shape of tragic dignity and doom. A unique feature of this book is its examination of Gandhi's youthful encounter in London with a climate of ideas often called the New Age. Like the New Age movement of today - which had its origins in earlier New Ages, particularly pre-World War I England - this New Age stressed spiritual growth, a love of peace, reverence for the environment, and vegetarianism. Among the figures who had an impact on Gandhi were Tolstoy, Annie Besant, Elena Petrovna Blavatsky, and John Ruskin. This first biography to connect Gandhi's development with the New Age, to show him as a son of the New Age, also investigates many personal relationships, which have been largely ignored or misunderstood. It thereby helps put into focus one of the most enigmatic and challenging figures of our century.