Indira Gandhi's life, from her birth in 1917 through partition and up to her assassination in 1984, was dominated by the politics of her country. Always directly involved in India's turbulent 20th-century history, once she accepted the mantle of power, she became one of the world's most powerful and significant women. This biography focuses on Gandhi's role as a female leader of men in one of the most chauvinistic, complex and politicized cultures in the world. Comprehensive, yet also personal, Frank's biography deals with power and how this often isolated woman handled it, alongside her family and her emotional life.