I vividly remember Professor Sabyasachi Bhattacharya from my university days — a tall, slightly stooped figure. As a historian he was regarded by many as a committed empiricist but in fact he was to engage with the broadest possible questions and encourage his students to do so too. I recall a seminar on Indian economic history that he transformed into a counterfactual discussion on “what if” the British had not succeeded in colonising India.
A massive work that Bhattacharya edited has just appeared. Long lockdowns make for long reads and I was lucky to be able to procure this three
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