Book excerpt: The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the emergence of colonial modernity in Odisha through the genre of the periodical press. How did the modernity project evolve in colonial Odisha? What were its contours? Was this modernity entirely consensual, or was it contested in the pages of the periodicals through an alternative modernity? This book addresses these and other questions about a forgotten chapter of India's intellectual history. Tracing the growth and decline of the Odia periodical press, the book studies its interface with colonial/alternative modernity in the region. It explores various aspects of two pioneering Odia magazines--the newspaper journal Utkal Dipika and the literary journal Utkal Sahitya--their economic and political bases, their patronage systems, the cultural and ideological backgrounds of their editors, and the role these journals played in shaping the Odia literary sensibility and identity. It shows how the periodical press shaped ideas and the material culture of the region and, in turn, got metamorphosed by the play of contemporary cultural and ideological forces.