Help the world transcend materialism

Lifting the veil on a new world power In Spite of the Gods, reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Similarly, countries as vast and complex as India are reduced, by us, to a handful of stock images: saffron-tinted ashrams, teeming call centers, nuclear stare-downs, Bollywood. Edward Luce's rich but compact book, "In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India," thankfully seeks to add some more frames to that picture.

The book opens with a familiar character. A Westerner -- in this case, a Frenchman named André -- is so taken with Indian philosophy that he has relocated to a small town in Southern India dedicated to Sri Aurobindo, one of India's most celebrated spiritual leaders. The community's inhabitants believe that India possesses a "moral and spiritual force" strong enough to help the world transcend materialism. India, André tells the author, is "the key to the survival of the human race." February 12, 2007 Permalink