Book: The Anarchy

Author

William Dalrymple

Summary

The history of the rise and fall of the East India Company.

Takeaways

The East India company was a trading company based in London that rose from humble beginnings to a fully fledged imperial power that managed to replace the ruling Mughal empire on the Indian subcontinent in a short period of time between 1756 and 1803. In that time period the East India Company extended their sphere of influence through treachery, forged contracts, collaboration with local banker, bribes, and military prowess in armed conflicts and wars.

As a company, the EIC was answerable only to its shareholders. With no stake in the just governance of the region, or its long-term well-being, the Company’s rule quickly turned into the straightforward pillage of India, and the rapid transfer westwards of its wealth.

Quotes

“In many ways the East India Company was a model of commercial efficiency: one hundred years into its history, it had only thirty-five permanent employees in its head office. Nevertheless, that skeleton staff executed a corporate coup unparalleled in history: the military conquest, subjugation and plunder of vast tracts of southern Asia. It almost certainly remains the supreme act of corporate violence in world history."

“In the end it was this access to unlimited reserves of credit, partly through stable flows of land revenues, and partly through the collaboration of Indian moneylenders and financiers, that in this period finally gave the Company its edge over their Indian rivals."

“Because it was not the British government that seized India in the middle of the eighteenth century, but a private company. India’s transition to colonialism took place through the mechanism of a for-profit corporation, which existed entirely for the purpose of enriching its investors."