Ghostly Past, Capitalist Presence

“The best account I have yet read of the enchanted and uncanny world of stories and beliefs that Bengalis like myself grew up in.” - Amitav Ghosh

“This strikingly original study returns ghosts, long unjustly neglected, back to their rightful place at the heart of the history of Bengali colonial modernity. By a fascinating series of literary, historical, and theoretical analyses, it reveals colonial reason’s obsession with the irrational and presents the narrative of replacement of decorous magical ghosts of premodernity by new forms of the uncanny and monstrous lodged in the disenchanted structures of capitalist economies and modern nation-states.” - Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, Columbia University

"As I read Tithi Bhattacharya’s book, I felt like I had stepped into the textual iteration of a comparable ghost dance. The five chapters combine a motley crew of Bengali and British specters to conceptualize a social history of fear. . . . Ghosts turn out to be unexpected but impressively credible interlocutors in colonial historiography as hidden dimensions and interactions of the three dominant social characters of this period. . . ."

  - Sreyashi Ray, South Asian Review

"Readers already knowledgeable about this period in Indian history will especially appreciate the sophistication of Bhattacharya’s work. Recommended. Graduate students and faculty." - M. H. Fisher, Choice

"Her readings of famous male Bengali Hindu litterateurs offer much insight into their worlds, as well as the larger world of colonial capitalist transformation in the late nineteenth century." - Neilesh Bose, South Asian History and Culture

“Riveting. . . . Older ghosts survived in the cracks and the shadows, and Ghostly Past, Capitalist Presence is an admirable attempt to make analytical room for their continued presence and whispery speech.” - Amit R. Baishya, H-Asia, H-Net Reviews

"Cultural history at its most inventive. . . . Bhattacharya reveals something profound about the creativity and violence of historical change itself." - Ankush Pal, Scroll

"[Bhattacharya] brings methodological clarity and firmness to the analysis of varied epistemic concerns without losing sight of caste, class and gender." - Aheli Moitra, Religion