Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny

by Stanley Wolpert

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India and the founder of a political dynasty realized by his daughter Indira Gandhi and her sons, was a statesman of immense depth, courage, and charisma. His semi-autobiographical account of his country's history, The Discovery of India, is astonishingly learned, drawing from Socrates, Nietzsche a>, Yeats, and the Bhagavad Gita with equal ease. Wolpert, who teaches Indian history at UCLA, met Nehru in the 1950s. As he assesses the legacy of a life devoted to Indian independence and socialism, his biography tries to show both the stature and the foibles of his subject. He also details Nehru's personal life, including the early death of his wife and his long affair with Edwina Mountbatten, the wife of the last British viceroy of India.

Genres: Biography, Politics

568 pages, Hardcover

First published October 3, 1996

About the author

Stanley A. Wolpert is an American academic, Indologist, and author considered one of the world's foremost authorities on the political and intellectual history of modern India and Pakistan and has written fiction and nonfiction books on the topics. He taught at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1959-2002.

Reviews

[Sahar Gulzar · Rating 5 out of 5]

As usual a delightful read by Stanley Wolpert, tue kind of mastery he had to weave the narrative with twists and turns of history, centered around a persona or vice versa. He is the most palatable writer for a fiction reader.