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Whistle Stopper - Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age
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List Price: $30.00
Our Price: $17.31
Your Save: $ 12.69 ( 42% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Bantam
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 325.54094109041
EAN: 9780553804638
ISBN: 0553804634
Label: Bantam
Manufacturer: Bantam
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 736
Publication Date: 2008-04-29
Publisher: Bantam
Release Date: 2008-04-29
Studio: Bantam
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Spinning Wheels
Comment: A very fine dual biography. Those wishing to learn more about the founding of modern India and Pakistan and the withering away of the British Raj are encouraged to buy and read this book.
Churchill and Gandhi are giant personalities of the first half of the last century, with their political and moral acts still echoing in today's world. Dr. Herman writes with authority, balance and insight while explaining the motivations of these two inspirational leaders--both having serious flaws and blind spots--who were so at odds for several decades over the future of the British Empire and, more specifically, the fate of its subjects on the subcontinent.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Marvelous History and a Timely Read
Comment: This is a wonderful book, easy to read, full of fascinating insights into two of the most powerful and prominent personalities of the 20th century. Churchill was, of course, flawed but such an interesting personality that one cannot resist his pull. Gandhi, on the other hand, left a far more negative mark on history. Perhaps a saint, he never-the-less, was so single mindedly devoted to the total expulsion of British rule, that he sacrificed the lives of millions of his countrtymen by refusing solutions that could have avoided the civil strife that lead to the parition of India.
There are lessons here for us today. The British decision to exit India on a date certain, regardless of conditions on the ground, played into Gandhi's destructive power. Let's hope that there is no Gandhi in the currect Iraq equation. The entire situation in the Middle East, of course, is largely the construction of Churchill following the First World War. This book is a supurb overview of the complexity, horrors and glories of the past century, and of its most prominent players.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent dual biography of 2 very different contemporaries
Comment: 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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Editorial Reviews:
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In this fascinating and meticulously researched book, bestselling historian Arthur Herman sheds new light on two of the most universally recognizable icons of the twentieth century, and reveals how their forty-year rivalry sealed the fate of India and the British Empire.
They were born worlds apart: Winston Churchill to Britain’s most glamorous aristocratic family, Mohandas Gandhi to a pious middle-class household in a provincial town in India. Yet Arthur Herman reveals how their lives and careers became intertwined as the twentieth century unfolded. Both men would go on to lead their nations through harrowing trials and two world wars—and become locked in a fierce contest of wills that would decide the fate of countries, continents, and ultimately an empire.
Gandhi & Churchill reveals how both men were more alike than different, and yet became bitter enemies over the future of India, a land of 250 million people with 147 languages and dialects and 15 distinct religions—the jewel in the crown of Britain’s overseas empire for 200 years.
Over the course of a long career, Churchill would do whatever was necessary to ensure that India remain British—including a fateful redrawing of the entire map of the Middle East and even risking his alliance with the United States during World War Two.
Mohandas Gandhi, by contrast, would dedicate his life to India’s liberation, defy death and imprisonment, and create an entirely new kind of political movement: satyagraha, or civil disobedience. His campaigns of nonviolence in defiance of Churchill and the British, including his famous Salt March, would become the blueprint not only for the independence of India but for the civil rights movement in the U.S. and struggles for freedom across the world.
Now master storyteller Arthur Herman cuts through the legends and myths about these two powerful, charismatic figures and reveals their flaws as well as their strengths. The result is a sweeping epic of empire and insurrection, war and political intrigue, with a fascinating supporting cast, including General Kitchener, Rabindranath Tagore, Franklin Roosevelt, Lord Mountbatten, and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. It is also a brilliant narrative parable of two men whose great successes were always haunted by personal failure, and whose final moments of triumph were overshadowed by the loss of what they held most dear.
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