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The Anarchy
The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
Global Discount Test - BB Non-Fiction
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Description
Finalist for the Cundill History Prize
ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY The Wall Street Journal and NPR
“Superb … A vivid and richly detailed story … worth reading by everyone.” -The New York Times Book Review
From the bestselling author of Return of a King, the story of how the East India Company took over large swaths of Asia, and the devastating results of the corporation running a country.
In August 1765, the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and set up, in his place, a government run by English traders who collected taxes through means of a private army.
The creation of this new government marked the moment that the East India Company ceased to be a conventional company and became something much more unusual: an international corporation transformed into an aggressive colonial power. Over the course of the next 47 years, the company's reach grew until almost all of India south of Delhi was effectively ruled from a boardroom in the city of London.
The Anarchy tells one of history's most remarkable stories: how the Mughal Empire-which dominated world trade and manufacturing and possessed almost unlimited resources-fell apart and was replaced by a multinational corporation based thousands of miles overseas, and answerable to shareholders, most of whom had never even seen India and no idea about the country whose wealth was providing their dividends. Using previously untapped sources, Dalrymple tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before and provides a portrait of the devastating results from the abuse of corporate power.
Bronze Medal in the 2020 Arthur Ross Book Award
Product details
| Published | Sep 10 2019 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 544 |
| ISBN | 9781635574333 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Illustrations | 16-page color insert |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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An energetic pageturner that marches from the counting house on to the battlefield, exploding patriotic myths along the way
Maya Jasanoff, Guardian
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A tour de force *****
Anne de Courcy, Telegraph
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Magnificent … The Anarchy explodes myths that have accreted around the history of the Company like barnacles on the hulls of its ships ... Dalrymple shines a forensic light on the knotty historical relationship between commercial and imperial power
John McAleer, Evening Standard
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Dalrymple has been at the forefront of the new wave of popular history, consistently producing work that engages with a wider audience through writerly craft, an emphasis on characters and their agency, evocative description of place and time, and the inclusion of long-neglected perspectives … The book's real achievement is to take readers to an important and neglected period of British and south Asian history, and to make their trip their not just informative but colourful
Jason Burke, Observer
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Gloriously opulent … India is a sumptuous place. Telling its story properly demands lush language, not to mention sensitivity towards the country's passionate complexity. Dalrymple is a superb historian with a visceral understanding of India … A book of beauty
Gerard DeGroot, The Times
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It is well-trodden territory but Dalrymple ... brings to it erudition, deep insight and an entertaining style
Financial Times

























