“This is an extraordinarily ambitious work that provides an authoritative account of the history of colonial and postcolonial Bengali intellectual life and the nationalist movement. By apprehending this complicated history of ideas and politics through the prism of how the culture concept—a global idea—becomes a Bengali concept, Sartori makes a signal, unique contribution to anthropology, critical Marxist approaches, and especially to the crowded literature on postcoloniality and cultural theoretical understandings of globalization. That Sartori is fully successful in coherently weaving the complex threads of his concerns together is the book's most important accomplishment.”
— George Marcus, University of California, Irvine
“This is an innovative work of exceptional intellectual quality—a sophisticated study of a significant but analytically intractable subject in Bengali intellectual history. Sartori’s approach is methodologically complex, and he combines this with a rich reading of a great deal of Bengali material.”
— Sudipta Kaviraj, Columbia University
"A skilfully crafted, theoretically sophisticated and densely textured book. It does the difficult work of bringing materiality into the heart of a history of ideas."
— Prathama Banerjee, Economic and Political Weekly
"[Sartori's] work provides rigorously argued grist for discussions of comparative colonialisms rooted in rich and non-deterministic readings of change in particular moments and places."
— Jason Cons, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History
"Sartori presents a highly disciplined, careful, and imaginative intellectual history, and his Marxian history of ideas . . . will incite lively debate and provide a much-needed stimulus to the writing of South Asian intellectual history."
— Kris Manjapra, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"The trajectory of intellectual activity - from liberalism to culturalism to communalism and communism was evidently a complex journey and it is to Sartori's credit that he theorises this transition."
— Lakshmi Subramanian, Nations and Nationalism