Overview

Finalist for the Cundill History Prize ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY The Wall Street Journal and NPR ""Superb ... A vivid and richly detailed story ... worth reading by everyone."" -The New York Times Book Review From the bestselling author of Return of a King, the story of how the East India Company took over large swaths of Asia, and the devastating results of the corporation running a country. In August 1765, the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and set up, in his place, a government run by English traders who collected taxes through means of a private army. The creation of this new government marked the moment that the East India Company ceased to be a conventional company and became something much more unusual: an international corporation transformed into an aggressive colonial power. Over the course of the next 47 years, the company's reach grew until almost all of India south of Delhi was effectively ruled from a boardroom in the city of London. The Anarchy tells one of history's most remarkable stories: how the Mughal Empire-which dominated world trade and manufacturing and possessed almost unlimited resources-fell apart and was replaced by a multinational corporation based thousands of miles overseas, and answerable to shareholders, most of whom had never even seen India and no idea about the country whose wealth was providing their dividends. Using previously untapped sources, Dalrymple tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before and provides a portrait of the devastating results from the abuse of corporate power. Bronze Medal in the 2020 Arthur Ross Book Award

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9781635573954

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Reviews

Superb. . . a vivid and richly detailed story . . . the greatest virtue of this disturbingly enjoyable book is perhaps less the questions it answers than the new ones it provokes about where corporations fit into the world, both then and now. . . Dalrymple's book [is] worth reading by everyone. - The New York Times Book Review As William Dalrymple shows in his rampaging, brilliant, passionate history, 'The Anarchy, ' the East India Co. was the most advanced capitalist organization in the world . . . Mr. Dalrymple gives us every sword-slash, every scam, every groan and battle cry. He has no rival as a narrative historian of the British in India. 'The Anarchy' is not simply a gripping tale of bloodshed and deceit, of unimaginable opulence and intolerable starvation. It is shot through with an unappeasable moral passion. --The Wall Street Journal An enlightening and entertaining tour of the history of the British East India Company. - New York Journal of Books Mr. Dalrymple sails through this story in fine style. . . . The reader will find plenty that echoes in modern India. - The Economist [An] expert account of the rise of the first great multinational corporation. --Kirkus Reviews It is difficult to read The Anarchy, published in the United States on Sept. 10, without being struck by how timely it feels, how surprisingly of the moment. An epic of 576 pages in all, it serves as a reminder that early capitalism was just as perverse, predatory, and single-minded in its pursuit of profit as its much-derided late-model equivalent. --The Daily Beast Splendid . . . Dalrymple's book is an excellent example of popular history--engaging, readable, and informative. - National Review William Dalrymple's The Anarchy makes sense of the E.I.C. and the political and economic conditions that enabled its curious ascent. . . [Dalrymple] navigates the teeming current of events smoothly, here gliding forward, there slowing to study the view. --Airmail Brilliant. . . . The fullest and most powerful description of the West's first encounter with Afghan society. --The New York Times Book Review on RETURN OF A KING Magnificent. . . . [Dalrymple's] histories read like novels. . . . This latest book delights and shocks. --The Wall Street Journal on RETURN OF A KING Masterful. . . . Dalrymple makes an important contribution by including recently discovered Afghan accounts of the war. --The Washington Post on RETURN OF A KING In Return of a King, Dalrymple has done again what he did magnificently for two other telling episodes of British imperial history in White Mughals (2002) and The Last Mughal (2006). . . . Dalrymple has a narrative gift. --The Huffington Post

Superb. . . a vivid and richly detailed story . . . the greatest virtue of this disturbingly enjoyable book is perhaps less the questions it answers than the new ones it provokes about where corporations fit into the world, both then and now. . . Dalrymple's book [is] worth reading by everyone. - The New York Times Book Review As William Dalrymple shows in his rampaging, brilliant, passionate history, 'The Anarchy, ' the East India Co. was the most advanced capitalist organization in the world . . . Mr. Dalrymple gives us every sword-slash, every scam, every groan and battle cry. He has no rival as a narrative historian of the British in India. 'The Anarchy' is not simply a gripping tale of bloodshed and deceit, of unimaginable opulence and intolerable starvation. It is shot through with an unappeasable moral passion. - The Wall Street Journal An enlightening and entertaining tour of the history of the British East India Company. - New York Journal of Books [An] expert account of the rise of the first great multinational corporation. - Kirkus Reviews Splendid . . . Dalrymple's book is an excellent example of popular history--engaging, readable, and informative. - National Review It is difficult to read The Anarchy, published in the United States on Sept. 10, without being struck by how timely it feels, how surprisingly of the moment. An epic of 576 pages in all, it serves as a reminder that early capitalism was just as perverse, predatory, and single-minded in its pursuit of profit as its much-derided late-model equivalent. - The Daily Beast Dalrymple is a marvelous storyteller. . . . He creates a 'you are there' environment for the reader that makes the book hard to put down. - Washington Independent Review of Books William Dalrymple's The Anarchy makes sense of the E.I.C. and the political and economic conditions that enabled its curious ascent. . . [Dalrymple] navigates the teeming current of events smoothly, here gliding forward, there slowing to study the view. - Airmail In his latest book, The Anarchy, Dalrymple recounts the remarkable history of the East India Company from its founding in 1599 to 1803 when it commanded an army twice the size of the British Army and ruled over the Indian subcontinent. . . . It's a hell of a story. - Marginal Revolution Mr. Dalrymple sails through this story in fine style. . . . The reader will find plenty that echoes in modern India. - The Economist

Brilliant. . . . The fullest and most powerful description of the West's first encounter with Afghan society. --The New York Times Book Review on RETURN OF A KING Magnificent. . . . [Dalrymple's] histories read like novels. . . . This latest book delights and shocks. --The Wall Street Journal on RETURN OF A KING Masterful. . . . Dalrymple makes an important contribution by including recently discovered Afghan accounts of the war. --The Washington Post on RETURN OF A KING In Return of a King, Dalrymple has done again what he did magnificently for two other telling episodes of British imperial history in White Mughals (2002) and The Last Mughal (2006). . . . Dalrymple has a narrative gift. --The Huffington Post

Author Information

William Dalrymple is the author of nine books about India and the Islamic world, including Return of a King, which won the Hemingway Award and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, PEN Hessell-Tiltman, and Duff Cooper Prizes. He writes regularly for the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and the Guardian and is one of the founders and a codirector of the Jaipur Literature Festival.

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