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9780670089475 656dbc2b1e3686b515262277 Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit https://www.midlandbookshop.com/s/607fe93d7eafcac1f2c73ea4/65f2a587f01245a5ea5ba154/81uedu0ycgl-_sy385_.jpg

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, ‘the most remarkable woman’ Eleanor Roosevelt had ever met, was a pioneering politician and diplomat celebrated internationally for her brilliance, charm and glamour. Marlon Brando called her the woman he admired most in the world, while ordinary American men gave up watching football to come hear her speak.

 

Pandit’s life straddled the twentieth century, her own story intertwined with that of the modern world. She was India’s first woman cabinet minister, first ambassador to the United Nations and first ambassador to the Soviet Union. She was also the first woman elected President of the U.N. General Assembly. And yet her influence extended well beyond these formal roles. She grew to be one of the most influential international voices of peace while also paving the way for women across the world in many fields.

 

Madame Pandit, as she was widely known, moved easily in global aristocratic circles, even as she worked tirelessly to improve the lives of suffering millions. She traded barbs and quips with Winston Churchill, out-debated Jan Smuts and garnered more attention than James Cagney. She was arrested for the attempted assassination of Benito Mussolini and later told John F. Kennedy not to go to Dallas. At the end of her career, she came out of retirement to battle her own niece, Indira Gandhi, in an epic clash of democracy vs. authoritarianism.

 

Based on eight years of research and using material in five languages from seven countries and over forty archives, Manu Bhagavan has written the definitive biography of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.

 

Review

Long before everything from COVID to air travel had proved our unity on Spaceship Earth, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was pioneering a global consciousness. It’s high time you met her. -- Gloria Steinem, writer and activist

Sidelined by the “great men” school of history writing, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit is brought to life in this vividly written and painstakingly researched biography. You’ll find yourself eagerly turning the pages to learn what happens next in a story you thought you already knew. -- Daisy Rockwell, International Booker Prize-winning translator of Tomb of Sand

With this illuminating biography, Manu Bhagavan restores Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to the pantheon of extraordinary individuals who created a modern India according to their noble vision of international human rights. Written in lucid prose with a scholar’s unflinching eye, this is yet a deeply affectionate portrait of a complex woman, and a masterful recreation of a thrilling period in history. -- Kiran Desai, Booker-prize winning author of The Inheritance of Loss

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit is not merely a biography; it is a captivating exploration of a life that shattered barriers and challenged conventions. Manu Bhagavan skilfully honours Pandit’s legacy, inviting us to re-evaluate history through a new lens and inspiring us to envision a more inclusive, just and interconnected world -- Indra Nooyi, former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo

Rigorously researched and engagingly written, Manu Bhagavan’s Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit: A Biography presents a highly readable portrait of one of India’s earliest, and perhaps, most influential women diplomats. By adroitly highlighting her sterling contributions in defining the paradigms that anchored Indian foreign policy post-Independence, Bhagavan has crafted a much-needed intervention into the debates over the evolution of our place in the world -- Shashi Tharoor, MP

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit’s extraordinary and eventful life is the story of India and its women, of the international order, and of Indian foreign policy, at a very consequential time in the twentieth century. Her life was a series of firsts and innovations: India’s first woman cabinet minister, president of the UN General Assembly, ambassador to Moscow and Washington, India’s leading voice abroad in the first decade after Independence?her list of firsts is longer than I can mention here. Her contributions to building the post-World War II order were acknowledged internationally. And her social conscience led her to pioneer much that we now take for granted. This remarkable lady has finally found a fitting biographer in Manu Bhagavan, whose historical sensibility and rigour is on full display in this sensitive and objective biography, which is also a contribution to intellectual history. I could not put it down until I had read it through. -- Shivshankar Menon, former national security adviser of India

 




About the Author

Manu Bhagavan teaches at Hunter College and the Graduate Center-CUNY, where he is a professor of history, human rights, and public policy and Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. He is the author or editor of seven other books, including the critically-acclaimed The Peacemakers. He frequently appears in the media to comment on global affairs. Manu lives in New York City.
9780670089475
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Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

ISBN: 9780670089475
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Details
  • ISBN: 9780670089475
  • Author: Manu Bhagavan
  • Publisher: Penguin Allen Lane
  • Pages: 600
  • Format: Hardback
  • Edition: Author Signed Books
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Book Description

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, ‘the most remarkable woman’ Eleanor Roosevelt had ever met, was a pioneering politician and diplomat celebrated internationally for her brilliance, charm and glamour. Marlon Brando called her the woman he admired most in the world, while ordinary American men gave up watching football to come hear her speak.

 

Pandit’s life straddled the twentieth century, her own story intertwined with that of the modern world. She was India’s first woman cabinet minister, first ambassador to the United Nations and first ambassador to the Soviet Union. She was also the first woman elected President of the U.N. General Assembly. And yet her influence extended well beyond these formal roles. She grew to be one of the most influential international voices of peace while also paving the way for women across the world in many fields.

 

Madame Pandit, as she was widely known, moved easily in global aristocratic circles, even as she worked tirelessly to improve the lives of suffering millions. She traded barbs and quips with Winston Churchill, out-debated Jan Smuts and garnered more attention than James Cagney. She was arrested for the attempted assassination of Benito Mussolini and later told John F. Kennedy not to go to Dallas. At the end of her career, she came out of retirement to battle her own niece, Indira Gandhi, in an epic clash of democracy vs. authoritarianism.

 

Based on eight years of research and using material in five languages from seven countries and over forty archives, Manu Bhagavan has written the definitive biography of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.

 

Review

Long before everything from COVID to air travel had proved our unity on Spaceship Earth, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was pioneering a global consciousness. It’s high time you met her. -- Gloria Steinem, writer and activist

Sidelined by the “great men” school of history writing, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit is brought to life in this vividly written and painstakingly researched biography. You’ll find yourself eagerly turning the pages to learn what happens next in a story you thought you already knew. -- Daisy Rockwell, International Booker Prize-winning translator of Tomb of Sand

With this illuminating biography, Manu Bhagavan restores Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to the pantheon of extraordinary individuals who created a modern India according to their noble vision of international human rights. Written in lucid prose with a scholar’s unflinching eye, this is yet a deeply affectionate portrait of a complex woman, and a masterful recreation of a thrilling period in history. -- Kiran Desai, Booker-prize winning author of The Inheritance of Loss

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit is not merely a biography; it is a captivating exploration of a life that shattered barriers and challenged conventions. Manu Bhagavan skilfully honours Pandit’s legacy, inviting us to re-evaluate history through a new lens and inspiring us to envision a more inclusive, just and interconnected world -- Indra Nooyi, former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo

Rigorously researched and engagingly written, Manu Bhagavan’s Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit: A Biography presents a highly readable portrait of one of India’s earliest, and perhaps, most influential women diplomats. By adroitly highlighting her sterling contributions in defining the paradigms that anchored Indian foreign policy post-Independence, Bhagavan has crafted a much-needed intervention into the debates over the evolution of our place in the world -- Shashi Tharoor, MP

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit’s extraordinary and eventful life is the story of India and its women, of the international order, and of Indian foreign policy, at a very consequential time in the twentieth century. Her life was a series of firsts and innovations: India’s first woman cabinet minister, president of the UN General Assembly, ambassador to Moscow and Washington, India’s leading voice abroad in the first decade after Independence?her list of firsts is longer than I can mention here. Her contributions to building the post-World War II order were acknowledged internationally. And her social conscience led her to pioneer much that we now take for granted. This remarkable lady has finally found a fitting biographer in Manu Bhagavan, whose historical sensibility and rigour is on full display in this sensitive and objective biography, which is also a contribution to intellectual history. I could not put it down until I had read it through. -- Shivshankar Menon, former national security adviser of India

 




About the Author

Manu Bhagavan teaches at Hunter College and the Graduate Center-CUNY, where he is a professor of history, human rights, and public policy and Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. He is the author or editor of seven other books, including the critically-acclaimed The Peacemakers. He frequently appears in the media to comment on global affairs. Manu lives in New York City.

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