"Colossus: The Anatomy of Delhi is an ambitious, wide-ranging, analytical, data-driven, theory-rich, multidisciplinary, and up-to-date compilation of fifteen essays that dissect the physical and social structure of India's National Capital Region, the second-largest metropolis in the world. The volume brings together experts from economics, environmental science, geography, history, political science, sociology, and urban planning to cover a wide range of subjects including demography and mapping, housing and settlements, physical assets and services, energy and pollution, political parties and leaders, crime, migration, marriage, education, and religion, caste, and class. It introduces a large-scale and granular household survey of the metropolis, including unique questions on social attitudes. Analysis of this data, combined with original contributions from established scholars of Delhi, yields deep insights into the social, political, and economic conditions and transformations in the region. The most significant of these insights raise doubts about the received wisdom on the inevitability of social change with urbanization, suggest new ideas about urban communities and their relationship to the state in its various forms, and point to new ways to examine the multiple manifestations of urban and spatial inequality"--