The Orphan Paradox

Destinies, Autocracies and Democracies in India and the United States

Dinesh Sharma (Author)

The Orphan Paradox

Destinies, Autocracies and Democracies in India and the United States

Dinesh Sharma (Author)

Hardback ~~£90.00~~ £81.00 Ebook (Epub & Mobi) ~~£81.00~~ £64.80 Ebook (PDF) ~~£81.00~~ £64.80

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Description

Dinesh Sharma provides a psycho-historical analysis of Indian democratic leaders and US democratic leaders to untangle how Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic data assumptions apply not only to psychological sciences but to most of the Western social sciences as well. As democratic institutions around the world come under threat, it is useful to compare the founders of the oldest constitutional democracy, the United States, with the largest populace democracy, India, to examine what the future of democratic societies may hold. Sharma compares the founding fathers of America, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison with their Indian counterparts, namely Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, and B. R. Ambedkar. While the struggle to build democratic institutions is a constant theme in the lives and works of these men over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the cultural and historical contexts of their life narratives offer a critique not only of democracy, but how to better understand leadership across cultures and histories in an increasingly globalized and interconnected world.

Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction: The Founders
1. From the General to the Mahatma
2. From the Man of Enlightenment to Non-Alignment
3. From the Constitutional Convention to the Buddha
Conclusion: Will Liberal Democracies Survive
Epilogue
Index

Product details

Published	20 Aug 2026
Format	Hardback
Edition	1st
Extent	256
ISBN	9781666976793
Imprint	Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations	10 b/w photos
Dimensions	229 x 152 mm
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Author

Dinesh Sharma

Dinesh Sharma is Director and Chief Research Offic…

Combining psychology, history, and political science, The Orphan Paradox introduces a ground-breaking approach to understanding the development of national leadership. It compares the United States and India - two of the most populist democracies in the world - to present a new and insightful way of looking at political culture. Sharma's exposition of "traumagenic leadership" shaped by psychic wounds and traumas that affect "both nations and the figures who lead them" is particularly compelling.

Dr. Arturo G. Munoz, Senior Political Scientist, RAND Corporation, and former CIA officer.
This bold new volume discovers how a high percentage of American presidents and India's prime ministers have lost one or both parents as children, and how this deeply shaped their later success. Like Sharma's earlier volumes, the Orphan Paradox offers an eye-opening inside look into our political leaders that even these leaders themselves may not realize.

Harold Takooshian, PhD, Past-President, Division of International Psychology, American Psychological Association, USA