| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Joseph S. Alter. Gandhi's Body: Sex, Diet, and the Politics of Nationalism. (Critical Histories.) Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2000. Pp. xviii, 207. $34.95.

The sheer quantity of academic and popular writing on Mohandas K. Gandhi makes it difficult to imagine that there could be any significant aspect of the subject that has not been adequately explored. Yet Joseph S. Alter contends that hitherto Gandhi has not been properly understood because one of the most fundamental loci for Gandhi's social, political, and moral experimentations—his body—has not received its due. To be sure, scholars have noted Gandhi's obsession with celibacy, diet, and health, but they have tended to regard these as incidental to his overall political and moral philosophy or as requiring another level of interpretation. Alter, instead, sets out to offer a reevaluation of Gandhi and his place in Indian history through "what Gandhi said and did with regard to sex, food, and nature cure" (p. xi). The result is a fascinating set of essays that, while not quite unlocking all the complexities and contradictions of Gandhi's ideas and practices, go a long way toward rehabilitating the significance of what has been too often dismissed as "faddish" and inconsequential to an understanding of Gandhi's contribution. Although Gandhi provides the common thread that runs through all the essays, Alter admits that his focus on Gandhi is, in fact, coincidental: it ultimately serves as a case study for exploring the more general principles about the relationship among body discipline, power/knowledge, and truth (p. xiv). . . .

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