Historical Dictionary of the Bengalis

Kunal Chakrabarti is a professor of ancient Indian history at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, and his areas of interest include social history of religion, regional histories and early textual traditions. His book titled Religious Process: The Puranas and the Making of a Regional Tradition was published by Oxford University Press in New Delhi.Shubhra Chakrabarti is an associate professor of history in Dayal Singh College, Delhi University, New Delhi, India. Her publications are on aspects of modern Indian economic history.

With over 750 entries, this dictionary of Bengali people, culture, and history spans the years 1600 BCE to 2011. K. Chakrabarti and S. Chakrabarti precede the main body of the text with . . . helpful supplementary material, including an introduction that establishes the scope of the volume. They cover histories of Bengalis in Bangladesh, the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura, and the diaspora. Maps of the three South Asian regions of focus lack careful identification and citation, and curiously are labeled 'sketch maps.' Dictionary entries skew heavily toward biography, with some exceptions: coverage of geography, culture, and social movements also figure in the text. Each entry highlights cross-references in boldface; sadly, no entries feature footnotes or individual lists of sources consulted. A lack of subaltern perspectives and analysis is evident; e.g., the book features an entry on upper-caste Bhadralok groups, but none on Bengali Dalit people. Even as a lengthy, conclusive bibliography opens up a trove of research sources to readers, tracing the connections between that body of work and the authors' own research and writing processes is difficult. Summing Up: Recommended.