Book excerpt: The popular perception of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose is that of a warrior-hero and revolutionary leader who led a life of suffering and sacrifice and who during the Second World War waged a great armed struggle for the freedom of India. What is often forgotten is that the warrior paused between battles to reflect on and write about the fundamental political, economic and social issues facing India and the world during his lifetime. Despite being immersed in the tumult of the anti-colonial struggle, Bose in his writings delved back into India s long and complex history and looked forward to the socio-economic reconstruction of India once political independence was won. The ideas he put forward were the products of a philosophical mind applied to careful analyses of specific historical situations and informed by direct and continuous revolutionary experiences in different parts of the world, of a kind unknown to any other leader of contemporary India. Distilled out of a twelve-volume set of Netaji s Collected Works, this new edition of his Essential Writings is designed to provide a single-volume introduction to the thought of this revolutionary leader of India s freedom struggle on the 75th anniversary of India s independence and Netaji s 125th birth anniversary. This volume is indispensable for all those interested in modern South Asian history and politics as well as nationalism and international relations in the twentieth century.