Gandhi: Voice of a New Age Revolution - Hardcover

Green, Martin Burgess

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826406203 ISBN 13: 9780826406200

Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group, 1993

Synopsis

Traces the life of the influential social activist, and looks at the philosophical ideas that helped shape his outlook

About this title

About the Author

Martin Green has taught literature at Tufts University and has taught in France, Turkey, and England.

Reviews

Substantial if not always stylish, this intellectual biography places Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) in the context of the late 19th-century "New Age," a burgeoning, if idealistic, period of romantic thinking. Green ( Prophets of a New Age ) proceeds chronologically, detailing events in Gandhi's life and sketching people and trends that influenced him. In England from 1888 to 1891, Gandhi encountered such early New Age icons as vegetarian Henry Salt; in South Africa in 1894, his activism was spurred by reading Tolstoy's writings on religion. Green links Gandhi's philosophy of satyagraha (passive resistance), formulated in South Africa in 1906, to a host of sources, including Thoreau and liberal Judaism. He describes Gandhi as neither martyr nor militant but "tough-minded realist," and, in contrast to other biographers, describes Gandhi's "womanliness" as having"more to do with socially constructed gender than sex." Green sees the myth of Gandhian heroism as rooted not just in orientalism but in the authoritarian British establishment, and suggets that, even if sexual scandal vitiated that myth, Gandhi stands as a "towering horizon figure" for ideas and politics.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In a penetrating retelling of the life of the gentle Indian revolutionary, Green (Prophets of a New Age, 1992, etc.) attributes Gandhi's peculiar brand of saintly political activism to his contact, as a law student in London, with what Green calls the ``New Age'' movement--which, the author says, included Tolstoy, Ruskin, G.B. Shaw, and others. The story of Gandhi's life is well known, but, in a genuine contribution to Gandhian scholarship, Green (who previously wrote about the Indian leader in Tolstoy and Gandhi: Men of Peace, 1983) sees Gandhi's Hindu-based devotion to ahimsa (``nonviolence'') as reinforced by his involvement, in London from 1888 to 1891, with some advocates of the New Age. This group of thinkers and writers- -who emphasized vegetarianism, pacifism, harmony with the environment, and spiritual devotion--included Tolstoy (with whom Gandhi corresponded), the vegetarian Henry Salt, and Madame Blavatsky. While Gandhi's vision may seem distinctively Indian, Green sees much of his subject's career as a realization of New Age principles, and as a uniquely British Victorian exercise in heroic myth-making: Green compares Gandhi's long exiles in Britain and South Africa, as well as his spiritual evolution and heroic death, to the careers of such Victorians as David Livingstone and Charles Gordon. Discussing Gandhi's campaigns against British rule and cultural hegemony, Green portrays his subject as a flawed man who aspired to spiritual perfection; who revolutionized India through his campaign of nonviolent noncooperation with British rule; and who, after his death, left a vacuum in India's political and intellectual life. First-rate life that reduces Gandhi to human scale without diminishing his greatness. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Charlatan or saint? Placing Gandhi at one extreme or the other has never been difficult. Green's intellectual biography places him firmly with Jesus Christ and Buddha--and with Tolstoy, Annie Besant, George Bernard Shaw, and others in the self-proclaimed New Age philosophical coterie associated with the turn of the 20th century. Borrowing heavily from the works of Erik Erikson and Robert Payne, Green ( Prophets of a New Age , LJ 5/1/92) constructs a rambling analysis of the development of Gandhi's intellect. What results is a dysfunctional narrative that veers from one to another of Gandhi's sexual aberrations, all justified by his acceptance of bizarre New Age beliefs. Rarely is a meaningful connection made between Gandhi's beliefs and India's striving for independence. The rubbish offered here provides little of the satisfaction found in Judith Brown's many studies of Gandhi.
- John F. Riddick, Central Michigan Univ. Lib., Mt. Pleasant
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0826406203
• ISBN 13: 9780826406200
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 424