The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
William Dalrympleamazon.com
The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
This was a sophisticated mercantile economy in which paper money was supplied by private enterprise and credit was based on the sale of contracts for the future supply of salt to the government – a commodity for which demand was exceptionally stable.
Apart from a very limited amount of state sponsorship, it was usually the prospect of commercial gain or of new lands for settlement which funded exploration – a misleading term, which usually signified the ‘mapping’ of existing trade paths through local informants. But the propulsion of economic or demographic need was spasmodic at best.