This book is not just another biography of Gandhi. It is valuable because it offers us a French view--- and Jewish too perhaps---- of a man and times so familiar to us and yet which acquires another dimension as it is represented through another culture.

There are eloquent accounts in this book of philosophers like Ramakrishna and Vivekananda who influenced Gandhi's thought and life. Rather than political events, Michael de Saint-Cheron holds up the force and courage of a man who became a prophet in a blood-thirsty century.

Interestingly, the author points out that it is only...