Poetry and History: Bengali Maṅgal-kābya and Social Change in Precolonial Bengal analyzes Bengali maṅgal-kābya, a genre of narrative literature. The first essay argues that the didactic purposes of maṅgal-kābya and the performative pleasures based upon satire make them rich sources for historians of precolonial Bengal. Three essays focus on Caṇḍimaṅgal texts, especially the version by Mukunda Cakrabartῑ, probably written before 1600 AD. They argue that Mukunda uses a ‘scale of transactions’ to describe normative roles...