Robert Payne was born in Cornwall, England on 4 December 1911. During his lifetime he had over hundred books published on a wide range of subjects but he was known chiefly for his biographies of Gandhi, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Marx, Schweitzer, Mao Tse-tung, Chiang Kai-shek and Winston Churchill.
This is the heroic story of the man whose non-violent movement transformed India both spiritually and politically as it impelled the nation along the road to independence. With consummate skill, in a narration that never flags in vividness and drama, Robert Payne re-creates Mahatma Gandhi both as a spiritual and historical force and as a living personality. Beginning with the moving story of a shy, awkward boy from a provincial Indian city who married at thirteen, then was separated from his bride for years while he read law in London, the book describe Gandhi's life as a successful barrister in South Africa who turned his back on wealth to defend Indian settlers against discrimination and persecution. In the tradition of his best-selling biographies of Lenin and Schweitzer, Robert Payne's life brings Gandhi alive as a rounded personality.
