Leonard A. Gordon


Leonard Abraham Gordon is a historian of South Asia, especially of Bengal, whose 1990 book Brothers Against the Raj: A Biography of Indian Nationalist Leaders Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose is considered the definitive biography of Subhas Chandra Bose.

Education and career

Gordon graduated from Amherst College, and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. He was a professor of history at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and has emeritus status there now. He was also the Director of the Southern Asia Institute at Columbia University.
Gordon's revised Harvard dissertation, Bengal: the Nationalist Movement won the biennial Watumull Prize of the American Historical Association in 1974, a prize recognizing "the best book on the history of India originally published in the United States." Gordon has been praised for his "narration of political events."

Subhas Bose Biography

His book, Brothers Against the Raj is widely regarded as the definitive biography of Subhas Chandra Bose.
However, the book has also been criticized for not being sufficiently critical of Bose's dalliances with European fascism and Japanese imperialism.