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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A TALE OF TWO GIANTS, May 31, 2008
Writing a dual biography of two political giants is not an easy task.One is reminded about the outstanding joint biography written many years ago by Lord Bullock on Hitler and Stalin.
In this book,two themes run concurrently:the British Empire's fin-de-siecle and the rise of India as an independent nation.Although of different backgrounds,both political giants-Churchill and Ghandi- seem to have been much alike.On the one hand, this book gives plenty of evidence about Churchill's effort to keep the Jewel of the British Empire no matter what the cost, while on the other hand, Ghandi- as shown here-has done almost anything to undermine Churchill's aspirations.In a very long but fascinating book, Arthur Herman has depicted the two rivals by showing their strong and weak points.Many other personalities make their appearance on this political stage,such as:General Kitchener,Rabindranath Tagore,Franklin Roosevelt,Jawarhalal Nehru,Clement Attlee and others.As Mr. Herman points out, both men enjoyed moments of glory but were also flawed.He tells a wonderful tale about one of the most fascinating yet violent periods of contemporary history.This book shows that there were many dark sides in the course of the British history and the Amritsar act of butchering helpless Indians is just one example.The final result of this showdown between Churchill and Ghandi was the rise of India and the demise of the British Empire with grave consequences for both sides.While at some point Churchill was out of touch with the historical reality ,Ghandi has not hesitated to sacrifice millions of his fellowmen in pursuit of his dream and in some ways he was extremely naive when interpreting some political events.
This books has been carefully researched and documented, the language is simple yet extremely rich, and the reader-I am confident- will enjoy one of the best-ever written history books that has come along in recent years.Arthur Herman is a master storyteller-a characteristic that many professional historians lack.The result: a very interesting ,quick-moving,rich and stimulating narrative.
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37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent dual biography of 2 very different contemporaries, May 1, 2008
This is one of those books that takes two familiar lives--those of Mahatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill--and tells them in parallel. The idea is that the two men influenced each other's goals and lives much more than has been acknowledged in the past. The two only met once: in 1906 when Churchill was Colonial Undersecretary, and Gandhi was lobbying on behalf of Indian independence. Author Herman makes this the center of the book in some ways, which is strange given that it happens very quickly in the book (on about page 130 of what's a 600-page tome) but it works, because the two men seem to have built impressions of one another resting in part on this meeting.
Herman has a number of things to say about both men. He spends about equal time with each, discussing the central issues of their lives and how the other person fit into each stage of the history of the 20th Century. For instance, when he's talking about Churchill, Herman recounts his attitude towards Indian independence and towards Gandhi personally. The book also works as a history of the latter part of the British Raj in India, from approximately the turn of the century to independence. There's a lot of interesting stuff in here, including the fact that Churchill's time "in the wilderness" during the run-up to World War II may have been due to his attitude towards India (he opposed independence resolutely) as much as his opposition to Hitler and appeasement. Gandhi comes across as a naïve idealist who thought he could create a country where everyone worked a spinning wheel and there were no factories, who made speeches that set off riots, but always seemed to think he was only encouraging non-violence.
I enjoyed this book a great deal. It's long, and there's a lot of material here, but it's very informative and has a different take on things. I would recommend it highly.
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32 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Lack of Understanding of Gandhi , June 30, 2008
Arthur Herman took up a challenging task to write the comparative histories of two men who influenced the lives of millions of people living around the world, each in a different way. He did not quite succeed in his task. Let me explain.
I believe that one cannot write a revealing history of India without being touched by its soul. Most books on Indian history, written by people from West, are good at documenting the chronology of events, battles, treaties and the like but they are not capable of giving a living portrait of the participants or the driving forces behind the events since the writers have not opened their eyes or intellect to recognize India's soul. The author is no different. He shows his ignorance by referring to Gita as a scripture that preaches violence.
Churchill and Gandhi are not comparable people. The former was a bigoted megalomaniac who got stuck with the nineteenth century racial outlook and could neither recognize nor accept the changing world. He had no hesitation to continue to subject an alien people to the rule of his own government for the material benefits that it would derive, he would neither agree to its end even when the rest of the world was moving into a new era. Where as, Gandhi was a spiritual humanist, believed in reaching out to his friends and enemies alike through peaceful negotiations and viewed at all human beings deserving of justice and humanity. Gandhi wanted love and justice for the entire human race and he saw shedding blood as inhuman and anti-divine while Churchill's vision was that the justice and rights were to be limited to a privileged few even if it is to be enforced through violence.
Gandhi was a Westerner in thoughts and beliefs in his early years, during his stay in South Africa and until around the early twenties. Therefore the author is able to understand Gandhi and successfully presents a clear portrayal of his spiritual journey during this period. At this time Gandhi himself was under delusion that British respected the ideal of human rights and justice for of everyone which was indeed true in England. Truth was different in India. The colonial bureaucrats who ran India were ruthless despots who violently enforced their will on a helpless Indian population.
The evolution of Gandhi from a loyal British subject towards some one who would demand total cut off from British connection began upon his arrival in India in 1915, accelerated by the Jallianwallahbag massacre by Dyer and was complete by the Second Round Table Conference. From that time onwards Gandhi becomes a stranger to the author. Like other Westerners the author fails in his comprehension of Gandhi during this period until his death in 1948. The narrative after the Second Round Table Conference looses objectivity and it becomes a tirade of Western incomprehension of Gandhi, the freedom movement and the other participants especially during the war period.
Scripps mission to discuss self government in India was initiated by Churchill to get Roosevelt off his back. Roosevelt was asking Churchill dissolve the empire and let Indians rule themselves in view of Universal human rights. Churchill put a poison pill in the Scripps offer in the name of "opt-out clause" by which Muslims, Sikhs, Princes, Anglo-Indians and whoever wanted could have their own "home land". This was anathema to Gandhi who saw India as one entity and he vetoed it. Scripps being naïve of the situation was upset with Gandhi while Churchill got what he wanted - kill any further talk of Indian independence and get Roosevelt off his back. Reaction of Viceroy Linlithgow towards Gandhi's Quit India movement in 1942 was to imprison the entire Congress leadership through the duration of the war and cultivate Jinnah and Pakistan as a potential British military outpost in the event that they were forced to vacate India. By the end of the war Labor won the elections in '45 but Churchill, Linlithgow and Wavell had done enough damage that partition of India had become inevitable. Author did not recognize the responsibility of these three men for the millions of deaths, refugee movements, legacy of hostilities in the subcontinent which haunts us till today and the evolution of Pakistan as a source of global terrorism today. In the discussion on Kashmir the author provides misleading statements. The tribal mercenaries under the guidance of Pakistan army attacking Kashmir and looting is well documented, I do not understand where the author got the idea that it was a concoction by Nehru. If author is indeed right, Mozaffirabad and Gigit would be under Indian rule today. By openly showing his dislike of Mountbatten the author shows his biases and fails in his task as an objective historian.
Author's narrative on Churchill was revealing in the sense that we are able to understand the psyche of a man who would refuse to acknowledge the human rights of four hundred million people, continue to live in the nineteenth century outlook, would cause the division of a country on religious basis, create millions of refugees, deaths and human suffering and a legacy of unending hostilities between the divided people.
I am puzzled by the inclusion in the reference list the discredited book, James Mill's "History of British India", an abusive and slanderous write up on Indian people, written under contract with East India Company long ago. It is a book that no contemporary Indic scholar would use as a reference. All I can hope is that the author's understanding of India and Indians did not come from that book.
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