Mahatma Gandhi

Preface to the 2012 ReissuePrefaceIntroduction1. Satyagraha Meets Swaraj: The Development of Gandhi's Ideas 1896-19172. Gandhi as Leader: Nonviolence in Power3. Critiques of Gandhi from His Contemporaries: Rabindranath Tagore and M.N. Roy4. Civil Disobedience: The Salt Satyagraha5. The Calcutta Fast6. MohandasConclusion: Gandhi's Contribution from Various AnglesAfterword to the 2012 ReissueChronologyNotesGlossaryBibliographyIndex

Dennis Dalton was the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Political Science and is now emeritus at Barnard College, Columbia University. The winner of a Fulbright scholarship and grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Philosophical Institute, he is the author of Indian Idea of Freedom: Political Thought of Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghose, Mahatma Gandhi, and Rabindranath Tagore and editor of Mahatma Gandhi: Selected Political Writings.

In this masterly analysis, Dalton shows how Gandhi's vision of a good life expressed itself in political action. Dalton has very wisely included what one seldom finds in books on Gandhi: examples of the trenchant criticism of his methods and his ideas that were made by Indian contemporaries. -- Ainslie T. Embree, Columbia University A beautiful, fine-grained piece of historical and textual research; cool, committed, and convincing in an intellectual terrain strewn with excessively passionate convictions. Dalton 'shows' rather than tells, through a meticulous examination of official speeches and administrative responses, the deep doubts about the legitimacy of their acts that Gandhi implanted in the minds of the highest and lowest British officials. Dalton also shows how the Mahatma's public enactment of self-sacrifice and renunciation demonstrated an efficacy not granted in conventional political acts within the context of religious viciousness and killing: lessons for Gandhi's era and ours. -- Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, University of Chicago The product of seasoned research and of several decades of teaching, reading, thinking, and acting on Gandhi's ideas. It is a rich stew, and a feast for those who appreciate careful scholarship and the continuing power of Gandhian thought... Dalton's book helps to ensure that Gandhi's voice will be heard beyond this generation and this century, and well into the next. Journal of Asian Studies This is more than a biography or a political history. We are offered a penetrating analysis of Gandhian philosophy as revealed in his most individual operations. English Historical Review Sensitive, sympathetic, and lucid. Economic and Political Weekly [Dalton's] new approach to place Gandhi in the context of other major political and social leaders of India, and then assess him as a successful leader, appeared to enhance the methodology of this very well informed and analyzed book, which deserves a place in any good library in the world.