In an exploration of three charismatic leaders, B.R. Nanda—one of India's foremost historians of the freedom movement—makes a comparative study of their backgrounds, temperaments, and the ideologies. He analyses in detail how they differed significantly in manner and style but shared a common vision of the unity and freedom of India. Followed by the introduction, in three separate works, Nanda examines the lives of these three leaders in relation to their eras. These, therefore, are both biographies and histories of critical times—relating personalities to periods and leaders to the societies they lived in. The volume focuses on the inter-relationship between their ideas and methods and how these remain relevant today. The past, says Nanda, as seen through the lives of Gokhale, Gandhi, and Nehru, informs the present and has many lessons for India and the world today.