Why has Penguin inflicted anew on Indian readers this desultory book on Mahatma Gandhi, quite the worst by a long chalk among the lot I have read? That may sound heretical in view of the many laudatory reviews excerpted on the flyleaf of this edition (obviously not corrected or updated). “It has not aged well” might be a charitable explanation, but I would have rated it the same had I read it when it first came out 37 years ago.
The contents of the book appeared initially in The New Yorker. They are grouped into three sections: subtler and more lasting shapes, in the steps of the autobiographer and his biographers, and, finally, the company they keep.
