An exhaustive biography of the man still considered the conscience of the nation of India, this exploration of Mohandas Gandhi’s life stretches from his childhood among the Gujarati merchants, through his time as a student in England, his years as a lawyer in South Africa, and his return to the Indian subcontinent and subsequent anticolonialist and nonviolent activities, to, ultimately, his assassination in 1948. Attali avoids both hagiography and hatchet job, presenting rather an objective, complete portrait of a man who has influenced leaders such as the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela, but who was not without his own weaknesses and contradictions.