Title Gandhi's printing press : experiments in slow reading / Isabel Hofmeyr

Published Cambridge, Mass. ; London, England : Harvard University Press, 2013

Click on the following:
JSTOR eBooks
EBSCO eBooks
ProQuest Ebook Central

Copies

Description 1 online resource (218 pages) : illustrations, maps Contents Introduction : a Gandhian theory of text -- Printing cultures in the Indian Ocean world -- Gandhi's printing press : a biography -- Indian Opinion : texts in transit -- Binding pamphlets, summarizing India -- A Gandhian theory of reading : the reader as satyagrahi -- Conclusion : "no rights reserved" -- Appendix : pamphlets reprinted from Indian Opinion Summary At the same time that Gandhi, as a young lawyer in South Africa, began fashioning the tenets of his political philosophy, he was absorbed by a seemingly unrelated enterprise: creating a newspaper. Gandhi's Printing Press is an account of how this project, an apparent footnote to a titanic career, shaped the man who would become the world-changing Mahatma. Pioneering publisher, experimental editor, ethical anthologist--these roles reveal a Gandhi developing the qualities and talents that would later define him. Isabel Hofmeyr presents a detailed study of Gandhi's work in South Africa (1893-1914), when he was the some-time proprietor of a printing press and launched the periodical Indian Opinion. The skills Gandhi honed as a newspaperman--distilling stories from numerous sources, circumventing shortages of type--influenced his spare prose style. Operating out of the colonized Indian Ocean world, Gandhi saw firsthand how a global empire depended on the rapid transmission of information over vast distances. He sensed that communication in an industrialized age was becoming calibrated to technological tempos. But he responded by slowing the pace, experimenting with modes of reading and writing focused on bodily, not mechanical, rhythms. Favoring the use of hand-operated presses, he produced a newspaper to contemplate rather than scan, one more likely to excerpt Thoreau than feature easily glossed headlines. Gandhi's Printing Press illuminates how the concentration and self-discipline inculcated by slow reading, imbuing the self with knowledge and ethical values, evolved into satyagraha, truth-force, the cornerstone of Gandhi's revolutionary idea of nonviolent resistance Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes In English Print version record Subject Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948 -- Political and social views SUBJECT Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948 fast Indian opinion (Durban, South Africa) Subject Reading -- Political aspects Newspaper presses -- South Africa -- History Newspaper publishing -- South Africa -- History Printing industry -- Indian Ocean Region -- History East Indians -- Attitudes HISTORY -- Asia -- India & South Asia. PHILOSOPHY -- Political. British colonies East Indians -- Attitudes Newspaper presses Newspaper publishing Political and social views Printing industry Public opinion SUBJECT Great Britain -- Colonies -- Public opinion Subject Indian Ocean Region South Africa Genre/Form Electronic books History Form Electronic book LC no. 2012031196 ISBN 9780674074743 0674074742

  Permalink