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alisarae 's review for:
Gandhi an Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth
by Mahatma Gandhi
It was very nice to read this book and see Gandhi's life from his own eyes. I understand why people say he was an INTP--I can totally see it now.
As Gandhi wrote this book published serially for contemporaries of the time, he didn't bother to give an explanation what was going on in the larger political theatre, assuming his readers would already be aware of it. Since I didn't know anything about his life before reading this book, I felt a little lost and some events appeared to pop up out of nowhere. For example, when he returned to India from South Africa, he was quite famous but he doesn't really explain the magnitude of his fame or how and why he became famous. Other iconic events like the salt march and the partition of India happened after this book was written (1921), so are not mentioned. It would have been better to read an outsider's biography of his life before reading his autobiography, and I plan to do that next.
A good deal of the book is spent talking about his personal experiments in dietetics, fasting, and telling anecdotes of people trying to convince him to eat meat or drink milk. So if you aren't really interested in that, maybe don't listen to the audio so you can more easily skip over those parts.
Other things are interesting though, like how completely inadequate he felt as a young lawyer and appeared by all accounts to be a failure in that department when he started out. How hard it is to sustain energy and motivation for political movements, and to raise money that impassioned people promise and then forget about. He would often fast when other people did something that disappointed him, as a way to show that he expected them to do better and to rectify the situation. And he talks about his spiritual development and beliefs.
The most inspirational thing was his commitment to personal morality and honesty, even as a young lawyer when more senior partners encouraged him to avoid the truth. The world needs more leaders committed to the truth; indeed, he said that Truth is his god.
As Gandhi wrote this book published serially for contemporaries of the time, he didn't bother to give an explanation what was going on in the larger political theatre, assuming his readers would already be aware of it. Since I didn't know anything about his life before reading this book, I felt a little lost and some events appeared to pop up out of nowhere. For example, when he returned to India from South Africa, he was quite famous but he doesn't really explain the magnitude of his fame or how and why he became famous. Other iconic events like the salt march and the partition of India happened after this book was written (1921), so are not mentioned. It would have been better to read an outsider's biography of his life before reading his autobiography, and I plan to do that next.
A good deal of the book is spent talking about his personal experiments in dietetics, fasting, and telling anecdotes of people trying to convince him to eat meat or drink milk. So if you aren't really interested in that, maybe don't listen to the audio so you can more easily skip over those parts.
Other things are interesting though, like how completely inadequate he felt as a young lawyer and appeared by all accounts to be a failure in that department when he started out. How hard it is to sustain energy and motivation for political movements, and to raise money that impassioned people promise and then forget about. He would often fast when other people did something that disappointed him, as a way to show that he expected them to do better and to rectify the situation. And he talks about his spiritual development and beliefs.
The most inspirational thing was his commitment to personal morality and honesty, even as a young lawyer when more senior partners encouraged him to avoid the truth. The world needs more leaders committed to the truth; indeed, he said that Truth is his god.