by William Dalrymple

ISBN: 9781408864388

Published: 2019

THE TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEARLONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019A FINANCIAL TIMES, OBSERVER, DAILY TELEGRAPH, WALL STREET JOURNAL AND TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR'Dalrymple is a superb historian with a visceral understanding of India ... A book of beauty' - Gerard DeGroot, The TimesIn August 1765 the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and forced him to establish in his richest provinces a new administration run by English merchants who collected taxes through means of a ruthless private army - what we would now call an act of involuntary privatisation.The East India Company's founding charter authorised it to 'wage war' and it had always used violence to gain its ends. But the creation of this new government marked the moment that the East India Company ceased to be a conventional international trading corporation dealing in silks and spices and became something much...