a detailed examination of the bengal famine preceding partition, intertwining it with the wider context of british colonialism and exploring its impact on politics and society as a whole. starting from world war ii, calcutta was the central industrial hub of the subcontinent in the british war effort, leading to its territorial prioritisation -- and thus, an imbalanced distribution of protection across the rest of bengal. targetted by japan due to its status to britain, a scorched earth policy was applied to the region, which began the disastrous effects of the famine. a series of colonial policies were put into place in reaction to the crisis, but the motivation in common among them all was, troublingly, public appearances -- the diplomatic image of a famine in the second city of the empire would be marred by the bodies strewn across streets, stuffed into sewers, dumped into rivers. mukherjee makes the critical observation that the empire's attitudes towards indians is intrinsic to its approach to their corpses, because while alive these labourers were given 'priority' based on their industrial contribution, in death, when such contribution stopped, they were labelled as nothing but 'muslim' or 'hindu', and were only thought to be swept aside when it would otherwise be a colonial detriment. it is argued that the impact such treatment had on the society of bengal exploded into the calcutta riots, a cataclysmic period of protests, murders, and looting, which are commonly chalked up to communal tensions. but mukherjee frames these events through the lens of the famine, and how it stripped down a society to a starved, impoverished, and morally desensitised population that was a perfect petri dish for their culturation. overall, this book is an enraging analysis of the bengal famine, shining a light on the indian lives sacrificed for the benefit of the british.