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William Dalrymple

The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire

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(25 customer reviews)
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In August 1765 the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and forced him to establish in his richest provinces a new administration run by English merchants who collected taxes through means of a ruthless private army – what we would now call an act of involuntary privatisation.

The East India Company’s founding charter authorised it to ‘wage war’ and it had always used violence to gain its ends. But the creation of this new government marked the moment that the East India Company ceased to be a conventional international trading corporation dealing in silks and spices and became something much more unusual: an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational business. In less than four decades it had trained up a security force of around 200,000 men – twice the size of the British army – and had subdued an entire subcontinent, conquering first Bengal and finally, in 1803, the Mughal capital of Delhi itself. The Company’s reach stretched until almost all of India south of the Himalayas was effectively ruled from a boardroom in London.

The Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world’s most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company, based thousands of miles overseas in one small office, five windows wide, and answerable only to its distant shareholders. In his most ambitious and riveting book to date, William Dalrymple tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.

25 reviews for The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire

  1. sourav roy (Verified Purchase)

    It’s a well written humongous book. Gives a lot of clarity of how the British through east india company took over India in totality and how us indians played a major part in it.

  2. Usha Negi (Verified Purchase)

    This book is an outsider’s viewpoint of the insider. He chose to be diplomatic while speaking about Britishers and was radically candid while speaking about Indian kings, culture and war tactics. Only good thing is the corporate lobbying by EIC that has been brought to light.

  3. ABHiSheK KumAR (Verified Purchase)

    Excellent. Was a little embarrassed about how little I knew about Colonial India. Must read.

  4. Manish Saini (Verified Purchase)

    The joint stock company will probably be the biggest influencer of history in the 21st century. William Dalrymple Anarchy is a must read for all economists and political scientists. Well written an excellent chronicle on the case for regulating corporations

  5. Sunita Biswas (Verified Purchase)

    Great read .. a good analogy of the chaos of the forgotten past within our own country, the Author has done an impressive job, a master piece. I now have a more clearer picture about the Raj , which initially started as a business enterprise by a handful of British merchants ultimately building their own private army and finally culminating in the British rule or “the Raj ” as we know it today. Thank you Mr. Dalrymple. Also good printing & binding ,perfectly readable Font.

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