Jawaharlal Nehru's extraordinary life was divided into three phases. For nearly thirty years, he was a wealthy Anglophile from a privileged Kashmiri Brahmin family, before Mahatma Gandhi drew him into the dream of freedom, and made him a pillar of the struggle for independence from British rule. Nehru resolved the contradictions between an aristocratic inheritance and nationalist commitment with intellectual sangfroid and personal conviction. Between 1947 and 1962 he was the anointed architect of the making of a new nation, adding his own socialist layer and worldview to the foundation of Gandhi's moral vision through the uncertain, difficult and defining 1950s. He shaped the temper and strength of Constitutional institutions in a committed democracy even as he nourished the economic aspirations of a country coming to terms with freedom. His tragic flaw was to ignore national security in the belief that an idealistic foreign policy was sufficient to preserve India's integrity in a post colonial world. Defeat in the China war of 1962 reduced his place in history.

In this incisive biography, M.J. Akbar explores the social, cultural, and intellectual worlds that shaped Nehru, revealing the private man behind the iconic statesman. Drawing on a wealth of material from British archives and Nehru's own papers, Akbar situates his life within the turbulent currents of twentieth-century India, years marked by soaring hope and self-defeating error, sacrifice and resolve. As sovereign India negotiated challenges of immense political and social complexity, Nehru stood at its centre: visionary, flawed, but in his age indispensable. Written with authority and insight by one of India's most distinguished authors, this book is a classic and compelling portrait of the man who helped India begin its journey towards the modern age.