Notwithstanding his contributions to religion, nonviolence, civil rights, and civil disobedience, among other areas, Gandhi's most significant contribution is that as a political philosopher. While he is not often treated as such, Gandhi was, as Anthony J. Parel argues, a political philosopher sui generis, both in his philosophical method of constant self-criticism and his framework of philosophical analysis. Gandhi wrote daily on politics, but he did so as an activist; political philosophy was to him not just a way of understanding truths of political phenomena but was directly related to understanding those truths in action. If realized in action these truths would give rise to new political institutions, which in turn would create a corresponding peaceful political and social order. Parel dubs this order Pax Gandhiana. The main contention of Pax Gandhiana is that peace cannot be achieved by politics alone. Peace requires the confluence of the canonical ends of life: politics and economics (artha), ethics (dharma), forms of pleasure (kama), and the pursuit of spiritual transcendence (moksha). Modern political philosophy isolates politics from the other three ends, but Gandhi's originality, according to Parel, lies in the way that he brings all four together. In fact Gandhi's political philosophy is relevant not only to India but also to the rest of the world: it is a new type of sovereignty that harmonizes the interest of individual states with the community of states. Arguing against scholars who dispute a theoretical unity in Gandhi's writings, Parel suggests that Gandhi is the preeminent non-western political philosopher, and in this book he seeks to identify the conceptual framework of Gandhi's political philosophy, the Pax Gandhiana.

Hind Swaraj is Mahatma Gandhi"s fundamental work. Not only is it key to understanding his life and thoughts, but also the politics of South Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. Celebrating 100 years since Hind Swaraj was first published in a newspaper, this centenary edition includes a new Preface and Editor"s Introduction, as well as a new chapter on "Gandhi and the 'Four Canonical Aims of Life'." The volume presents a critical edition of the 1910 text of Hind Swaraj, fully annotated and including Gandhi"s own Preface and Foreword (not found in other editions). Anthony J. Parel sets the work in its historical and political contexts and analyses the significance of Gandhi"s experiences in England and South Africa. The second part of the volume contains some of Gandhi"s other writings, including his correspondence with Tolstoy and Nehru.

This comprehensive Gandhi reader provides an essential new reference for scholars and students of his life and thought. It is the only text available that presents Gandhi's own writings, including excerpts from three of his books An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Satyagraha in South Africa, Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule)-a major pamphlet, Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place, and many journal articles and letters along with a biographical sketch of his life in historical context and recent essays by highly regarded scholars. The writers of these essays hailing from the United States, Canada, Great Britain and India, with academic credentials in several different disciplines examine his nonviolent campaigns, his development of programs to unify India, and his impact on the world in the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. Gandhi's Experiments with Truth provides an unparalleled range of scholarly material and perspectives on this enduring philosopher, peace activist, and spiritual guide."

This Lexington Books edition of Comparative Political Philosophy brings back into print a volume that was one of the first to move beyond a Eurocentric bias in the study of political philosophy and provide a well-balanced critique of the perilous transition from tradition to modernity. The book is evidence of the benefits to be reaped from comparison, from a reading of Aristotle together with the Arthashastra, of Mahatma Gandhi with Eric Voegelin, of Voltaire with Confucius. Focusing on key texts from Chinese, Indian, Western and Islamic political philosophy, chapter authors both describe the very different contexts from which philosophic traditions arose and discover basic tenets they have in common. In a new introduction, editors Anthony J. Parel and Ronald C. Keith discuss the changes in political contexts since the book's first publication, and they underscore the increasing importance of the comparative approach.

In this highly original interpretation of Machiavelli's thought, Anthony J. Parel identifies a theme generally neglected in the scholarship of this sixteenth-century political thinker: Machiavelli's belief in the occult forces of heaven and humors. Challenging the current tendency to view Machiavelli as a pioneer of modern political science, Parel argues instead that a premodern cosmology and anthropology underlie Machiavelli's political works. Parel shows that Machiavelli's world picture owes more to the astrological cosmology prevalent in the Renaissance than to the Aristotelian or Platonic or Christian world picture. This astrological determination significantly affects Machiavelli's conceptions of history, politics, and religion and shapes his notions of virtu and fortuna. It also has considerable impact on his ethical ideas: the Machiavellian cosmos has no room for a Ruling Mind or for the Sovereignty of the Good, and humans are left to pursue their appetites for riches and glory as best they can. In a similar fashion, says Parel Machiavelli's political anthropology is influenced by the ancient idea that body humors determine a person's temperament and behavior, for he believes that humors compromise human autonomy and rationality. According to Parel, the theory of humors also affects Machiavelli's view of the body politic and his characterization of republics, princedoms, and licenzia, and Parel explicates this in new readings of The Prince, the Discourses, and the Florentine Histories.

Anthony Parel affords a novel perspective on the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. He explores how Gandhi connected the spiritual with the temporal. As Parel points out 'being more things than one' is a good description of Gandhi and, with these words in mind, he shows how Gandhi, drawing on the Indian time-honoured theory of the purusharthas or 'the aims of life', fitted his ethical, political, aesthetic and religious ideas together. In this way Gandhi challenged the notion which prevailed in Indian society that a rift existed between the secular and the spiritual, the political and the contemplative life. Parel's revealing and insightful book shows how far-reaching were the effects of Gandhi's practical philosophy on Indian thought generally and how these have survived into the present.

Anthony Parel affords a novel perspective on the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. He explores how Gandhi connected the spiritual with the temporal. As Parel points out 'being more things than one' is a good description of Gandhi and, with these words in mind, he shows how Gandhi, drawing on the Indian time-honoured theory of the purusharthas or 'the aims of life', fitted his ethical, political, aesthetic and religious ideas together. In this way Gandhi challenged the notion which prevailed in Indian society that a rift existed between the secular and the spiritual, the political and the contemplative life. Parel's revealing and insightful book shows how far-reaching were the effects of Gandhi's practical philosophy on Indian thought generally and how these have survived into the present.

Hind Swaraj is Mahatma Gandhi's fundamental work. Not only is it key to understanding his life and thoughts, but also the politics of South Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. Celebrating 100 years since Hind Swaraj was first published in a newspaper, this centenary edition includes a new Preface and Editor's Introduction, as well as a new chapter on 'Gandhi and the 'Four Canonical Aims of Life''. The volume presents a critical edition of the 1910 text of Hind Swaraj, fully annotated and including Gandhi's own Preface and Foreword (not found in other editions). Anthony J. Parel sets the work in its historical and political contexts and analyses the significance of Gandhi's experiences in England and South Africa. The second part of the volume contains some of Gandhi's other writings, including his correspondence with Tolstoy and Nehru.