The book feels like a writer working within his limits and not breaking any new ground, believes KEN COCKBURN
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The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, by William Dalrymple
Timely exposure of rapacious imperialist plunder in India
Uncivilising mission: Painting of Robert Clive, EIC official and military commander, after the battle of Plassey in 1757, where many Bengalis
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PRAGYA AGARWAL recommends a collection of drawings that explore the relation of indigenous people to the land in south Asia, Africa and the Caribbean
CHRIS SEALE speaks to Palestinian sound artist BINT MBAREH
MARY CONWAY applauds a brave and timely two hander that explores the difference between intimacy and abuse
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review The Thing with Feathers, Train Dreams, Sisu: Road to Revenge, and Wicked: For Good
GUILLERMO THOMAS welcomes a biography of WA Domingo, a key figure in the anti-colonial struggle in the Caribbean
THIS excellent chronicle of the rise and fall of the East India Company has real global resonance today.
The East India Company (EIC) was in many ways the first transnational corporation, starting life as a trading company in 1599 although, as author William Dalrymple notes, for some time the company struggled to get a foothold in India and the region.
That all changed in the mid-18th century. Over the 35 years to 1798 the EIC was effectively transformed from a trading company to an aggressive military combatant in the region, a privately owned imperial power with a standing army of 200,000 and territorial possessions far larger than that of its parent country.
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