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.
John Darwin • After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000
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.
John Darwin • After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000
The rapid collapse of the mighty and opulent Mughal Empire in the early eighteenth century stands as almost an enigma of history, but perhaps what was even more improbable was its complete replacement not by a rival state, but by a European trading company a century later. William Dalrymple charts the disintegration of India into a state of civil s... See more