“Effervescent with intellectual energy, Mazzarella’s Mana of Mass Society is that exceedingly rare book that stands equal to its subject matter. More than a century after its formulation as a general theory of magic, this book performs here its eternal return, making us suddenly aware of that unacknowledged magic of modernity that like a flash surfaces at a moment of danger.”
— Michael T. Taussig, Columbia University
“The Mana of Mass Society advances anthropology’s increasingly pivotal contributions to social and critical theory. Mazzarella gives a new charge to prompts from post-secularist and ontological perspectives—concerning belief, for example, and alliances between human and non-human worlds within modernity—in this brilliant meditation on magical thinking.”
— Leela Gandhi, Brown University
“This book feels its way into thinking differently about a world of incipience beyond the zero-sum academic drama-storms that purify anthropological objects. Here, the undead ethnographic object of encounters and gestures returns to re-prompt attentive description.”
— Kathleen Stewart, University of Texas at Austin
"A daring, wise book about the mysterious energies generated by mass media, which, coursing through modern life, enchant and quicken us, for good and for ill."
— Religion
"In addition to providing a critical theory of culture and a history of anthropology, The Mana of Mass Society also represents a useful plea in favor of anthropology. It not only proposes theoretical avenues but also shows how to give contemporary relevance to dusty and/or mystificatory concepts and theories."
— Reading Religion