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Gandhi As a Political Strategist: With Essays on Ethics and Politics (Extending horizons books)

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I read this book after reading Sharp's series "The Politics of Nonviolent Action", a masterpiece of originality, clarity and thoroughness. And I've been quite interested in Gandhi and his philosophy for years. So I was really disappointed in this book, which seems to be a half-hearted collection of Sharp's essays on Gandhi--and some that aren't even on Gandhi. (Hence the subtitle, "with essays on ethics and politics".) Nonetheless, the book is hard to find, so I'll wrote the table of contents here.

Contents

Introduction by Coretta King

PART ONE: GANDHI AS A POLITICAL STRATEGIST
1. Gandhi's Political Significance
2. Origins of Gandhi's Use of Nonviolent Struggle: A Review-Essay on Erik Erikson's "Gandhi's Truth"
3. Gandhi on the Thoery of Voluntary Servitude
4. Satyagraha and Political Conflict: A Review of Joan V. Bondurant's "Conquest of Violence"
5. The Theory of Gandhi's Constructive Program
6. Gandhi's Evaluation of Indian Nonviolent Action
7. India's Lesson for the Peace Movement
8. Gandhi's Defense Policy
9. Gandhi as a National Defense Strategist

PART TWO: ESSAYS ON ETHICS AND POLITICS
10. Type of Principles Nonviolence
11. Ethics and Responsibility in Politics: A Critique of the Present Adequacy of Max Weber's Classification of Ethical Systems
12. Morality, Politics, and Political Technique
13. Nonviolence: Moral Principle or Political Technique? Clues from Gandhi's Thought and Experience

APPENDICES
A. Shridharani's Contribution to the Study of Gandhi's Technique
B. The War in 1942
C. Glossary of Indian Terms
D. Sources for Further Study
E. Recommendations for Course Usage
F. Suggestions for Preparing Courses on Gandhi

...and that's about it.

Sharp has some great points here. One of the best is that, while Gandhi is often thought to have judged his movement a failure towards the end of his life, this isn't the whole story; Gandhi published an enormous amount, writing constantly for various newspapers and talking to many reporters, and while he judged his movement a failure on some days on other days he judged it a success; one should really look at an analysis of the movement itself, not Gandhi's changing evaluations. He also talks about Gandhi's thoughts on a potential nonviolent defense strategy, which was simply inadequate and not thought through very well. This is something that is often neglected in studies of Gandhi's thought. Also, his chapter on categories of nonviolence may be useful for some.

The most annoying thing about this book is that many of the chapters are atrociously redundant. 8 and 9 in particular, as well as 11 and 12. The writing is already a little bit dry, and two chapters which both say the exact same thing, one a little worse than the other, doesn't help at all. Sharp should have put in a few more hours of work and combined them. Also, some essays, such as the third chapter, are largely quotes of Gandhi with little added.

Finally, I'd say that this book is only for those who are excessively interested in Gandhi. But I would repeat that Sharp's Series on "The Politics of Nonviolent Action" is, unlike this uninspired collection, magnificent.