
Gandhi was also a very interesting thinker on matters of religion. He called this technique ‘satyagraha’, or ‘truth force’, and it has been followed and adopted in many countries across the world since his death, including in the United States. He was also a moral philosopher who gave the world a particular technique for combating injustice, namely nonviolent protest. He was the preeminent nationalist leader of one of the world’s most important and largest countries.īut he was much more than merely a political leader.

He is the major national figure in India, comparable to, say, Lincoln and Jefferson in the United States, De Gaulle in France, Churchill in the UK, Mao in China, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and so on.

One is that he is regarded as the father of the Indian nation, and India is the world’s largest democracy and its second most populous country. We need to know about him for many reasons. Especially for younger people who might not be as familiar with Gandhi, can you tell us why he’s so important and why we need to know about him?

There’s the volume that covers Gandhi’s years in South Africa, Gandhi Before India, and then there’s another 900+ page volume, Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, covering the period from 1914 until his death in 1948. We’re talking about books to read about Gandhi, but it’s hard to do that without mentioning your own biography.
