Eric McCormick was, from about 1940 until his death in 1995, one of New Zealand's most distinguished writers and scholars. He pioneered the appreciation and study of the painter Francis Hodgkins, and he wrote several biographies. The autobiographical fragments collected here have been edited to make a coherent volume, tracing his origins in Taihape, to school and university in Wellington, to schoolteaching in Nelson, to Cambridge and through his wartime experiences and role as editor of Centennial Publications. It includes his shrewd observations of social behaviour, recorded with a dry wit.

“Provocative. Adams strips away Gandhi’s saintly aura and explores the duality of India’s most famous leader.” —Financial Times Jad Adams traces the course of Gandhi’s multi-faceted life and the development of his religious, political, and social thinking over seven tumultuous decades: from his comfortable upbringing in a princely state in Gujarat; his early civil rights campaigns; his leadership through civil disobedience in the 1920s and 1930s that made him a world icon; and finally to his assassination by a Hindu extremist in 1948, only months after the birth of an independent India. An elegant and masterly account of one of the seminal figures of twentieth-century history, Adams presents for the first time the true story behind the man whose life may truly be said to have changed the world.

English translation and appreciation by Peter Chen and Michael Tan Reviewed by Chan Chiu MingAn original English translation from the Chinese text:A companion edition of the book in Chinese is available — the original classical text translated into modern Chinese and profusely annotated by Associate Professor Dr Chan Chiu Ming of National Institute of Education, Singapore.