Leonard A. Gordon
historian of South Asia

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 (now discontinued) 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."
Bibliography
Gordon, Leonard A.; Miller, Barbara Stoler (1971), A Syllabus of Indian Civilization, New York: Columbia University Press
Gordon, Leonard A. (January 1974), Bengal: the Nationalist Movement, 1876–1940, New York: Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0-231-03753-2
Gordon, Leonard A. (1990), Brothers Against the Raj: A Biography of Indian Nationalist Leaders Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose, New York: Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0-231-07383-7
See also
Joyce Lebra
Peter W. Fay
Death of Subhas Chandra Bose
Notes
References
Framke, Maria (2012), "Encounters with Fascism and National Socialist in non-European Regions: Review of five books 1. Sugata Bose, His Majesty's Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India's Struggle Against Empire, 2011; 2. ..." (PDF), Sudasien-Chronik – South Asia Chronicle, vol. 2, Sudasien-Seminar der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, pp. 350–374, doi:10.18452/17972, ISBN 978-3-86004-286-1
Gupta, Brijen K. (1975), "Review of Bengal: The Nationalist Movement, 1876-1940 by Leonard A Gordon", American Historical Review, 30 (4): 1033, doi:10.2307/1867585, JSTOR 1867585
Hayes, Romain (2011), Subhas Chandra Bose in Nazi Germany: Politics, Intelligence and Propaganda 1941-1943, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-932739-3
Kling, Blair B. (1993), "Review of :Brothers against the Raj: A Biography of Indian Nationalists Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose by Leonard A. Gordon", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 113 (1): 155, doi:10.2307/604239, JSTOR 604239
Kopf, David (1992), "Review of: Brothers against the Raj: A Biography of Indian Nationalists Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose by Leonard A. Gordon", American Historical Review, 97 (1): 270–271, doi:10.2307/2164695, JSTOR 2164695
Wainwright, A. Martin (Summer 2013), "Review of His Majesty's Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India's Struggle against Empire, by Sugata Bose, 2011", Historian, 75 (2): 361–362, doi:10.1111/hisn.12010_25, S2CID 144712375
Zachariah, Benjamin (2012), "Review of Sugata Bose.
The public source identifies “Leonard A. Gordon” as historian of South Asia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Leonard, Gordon and historian.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Leonard A. Gordon”, the useful work is to connect “historian of South Asia” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16731395. VIAF identifies the subject as 64050835. The Library of Congress control number is n88682485. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1990, 1974, 1971 and 1876.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Leonard A. Gordon”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Leonard A. Gordon primary sources, Leonard A. Gordon archive and Leonard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Leonard A. Gordon”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Leonard A. Gordon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.