Preface xiiiwas a source of inspiration. Seema Alavi, Jayati Ghosh, and Kris Man-
japra each read a couple of chapters and offered helpful comments.
Only five persons—Krishna Bose, Joyce Seltzer, Ayesha Jalal, and two
readers for Harvard University Press—read the manuscript in its en-
tirety. Krishna Bose is a walking reference library on Subhas Chandra
Bose, especially on his overseas activities in Europe and Southeast Asia.
Her own books in Bengali—Itihaser Sandhane and Charanarekha Taba
—are literary classics in their own right. By casting her eyes over the
text, she helped to ensure both fac tual accuracy and a sensitive un der-
stand ing of the more contentious issues surrounding the life and times
of Subhas Chandra Bose. Joyce Seltzer’s close reading and critical mar-
ginal comments in pencil did much to improve the book in both style
and substance. She encouraged me to write for a wide audience of non-
specialists and at the same time to retain the depth of scholarly re-
search. She also showed me ways of balancing a portrait of the man’s
greatness with a perception of his human flaws and failures. Both the
praise and the constructive suggestions contained in the two readers’
reports were an enormous help in the final revision and re finement of
the manuscript.
Ayesha Jalal’s marginal comments were as incisive as her oral criti-
cisms. She provided encouragement and support in good mea sure. Her
own exemplary work on the relationship of the individual to larger
historical pro cesses served as an inspiration. I hope she will see this
book as a worthy product of our three de cades of emotional compan-
ionship and intellectual comradeship.