A story of ambivalent modernization in Bangladesh and West Bengal: the rise and fall of Bengali elitism in South Asia / Pranab Chatterjee

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Ch. 1. Introduction : the ambivalent modernization of Bengali culture -- Ch. 2. Pre-modern Bengal from antiquity to 1204 : centuries of Sanskritization; a culture built on fault-lines across caste divisions -- Ch. 3. Pre-modern Bengal between 1204 and 1757 : five plus centuries of Islamization; addition of more fault-lines across religious divisions -- Ch. 4. Ambivalent modernization, 1757-1947 : almost two centuries of Anglicization - conflicts in knowledge, identity, and loyalty - addition of more fault-lines -- Ch. 5. Bangladesh and West Bengal since 1947 : ambivalent modernization continues; conflicts between Islamization, Bengali nationalism, Marxism, and peasant democracy; chronologies and quantitative trends -- Ch. 6. Bangladesh and West Bengal since 1947, part 2 : ambivalent modernization continues; conflicts between Islamization, Bengali nationalism, Marxism, and peasant democracy; some qualitative trends; summary and conclusions -- App. Intellectual traditions in ethnographic studies.